Bridezilla
by Gnom DePlume
Summary: It was time they got hitched...come hell or high Neitherworld antics! Movieverse sequel. BJ/Lydia
1. Chapter 1: The Bride Summons The Groom

EDIT (7/11/11): I was re-reading this, trying to get in the mood to get the next chapter rolling, and parts of it kind of sucked so I fixed those up a bit. Hopefully, it makes more sense now.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my plot twists!

AN: So, I got bitten by the Beetlejuice bug, and here is the fanfic that proves it. Kudos to all the excellent fan authors who inspired me to write my own! Here's to cracky goodness and hoping I actually finish it.

CHAPTER ONE: In Which His Bride Summons Our Hero, Beetlejuice

Lydia Deetz dropped the last box and flopped onto the flimsy plastic chair to survey her new dorm. It had barely enough room for some furniture and an incongruous sink crammed in over to the side. Everything from the exposed pipes to the metal door was painted a dingy off-white. It was depressing, much more so than her usual non-color scheme of black. Still, it was her own space which she wouldn't have to share with a roommate, or better yet, with Delia's fashion sense.

She hadn't really wanted to go off to college, but when she had proposed the idea of commuting to a nearby community college, her frequently out-of-town parents had raised an eyebrow but it was Adam and Barbara who had sat her down for a rather familiar talk about the living needing to live.

"Oh, Lydia," Barbara began. "You can't stay here forever. You need to get out and live your life while you still have one. We love you, and we want what's best for you, even if we won't get to see you everyday anymore."

"Listen to her on this, we know what we're talking about," Adam added.

"It was a happy accident that brought you into our unlife, and we've been glad to have you for as long as we have. It seems like we just turned around one day and here you are, all grown up and ready to stand on your own."

Adam went on with a metaphor about birds leaving the nest and learning to fly which went on for an unbearable length of time and is just something that parents, even surrogate ones, only say to make themselves feel better. Fortunately for Lydia, she wasn't paying much attention – because something that Barbara had said niggled at the back of her mind, where she kept things she didn't want to think about too much.

It wasn't an accident that the Maitlands were still around. No, she really owed four years and counting with the most dedicated parental units she'd ever had to…_him_. A certain ghost with the most that, now that she was older and wiser, she realized with some embarrassment that she had utterly stiffed (to pardon the pun). It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. They'd had a deal, which he had upheld, and she had let him get eaten by a sandworm at the altar. Not cool. Sure, she didn't want to marry a rude, perverted, dirty ghost who transformed into snakes and trick carnival rides, but she had said that she would. No one could say that Lydia Deetz went back on her word – except for _him_.

That fact settled like an imp in her brain, dancing around and distracting her all hours of the day and night, an itch that could only be scratched by completing the half-finished deal. At times, Lydia wondered if he had even survived the sand worm, and was rather disgusted with herself at the sense of relief she felt at the thought that she couldn't marry him because he had been destroyed and her debt could be forgotten. However, Lydia wasn't stupid enough to try calling him without a plan for any contingency.

So she got into a good university and packed her room and asked to borrow the handbooks, ostensibly to see if there was a way that she could communicate with her ghostly godparents while away (they weren't any good with using the phone – all they could manage was a sort of Morse code made of static). What she was actually looking up was both exactly that and something a little more complicated.

She found that mirrors could be a conduit for the soul, allowing the dead to travel or scry, but that didn't help her much and was illegal besides (too many spirits had gotten themselves inconveniently trapped inside, unable to get out and very much visible to the living). The living could try to contact the dead using things like Ouija boards, but it was terribly imprecise and you never knew who you were really channeling.

The only mention she found of the dead marrying the living was in the fine print of a footnote and it basically said: don't.

So she looked up contracts, and renegotiations, which there was an entire chapter on that basically said: your word is your bond, get used to it.

Nearly at her wit's end by the time she was having a nice farewell dinner out with her parents, she was saved by, of all things, a bit of salacious gossip about Otho's divorce. He was losing half his assets because of the prenup. All she had to do was get HIM to sign a prenuptial agreement and she could soothe her conscience and her common sense! How hard could it be?

Famous last words.

Finally, though, it was written. And then re-written, to be as baffling and incomprehensible and full of jargon as possible. Her father was some help in this, having at one time been a rather unscrupulous real estate agent, and what's more he never asked what she needed the phrases for beyond a vague reply of 'practice for school.'

Now the moment of truth was upon her. Now she would find out what had happened to him. Now wrongs would be righted!

She opened the box marked with an x and took out her wedding dress. It was actually a Halloween costume she had worn last year when she went as a zombie bride, but she hardly thought he would care about a little fake blood. Okay, a lot of fake blood and a gory chest wound, which she was quite proud of making herself. The dress itself was from a second hand store and terribly 80's, with excessive lace and poufy sleeves, but fortunately no shoulder pads under the sheer yoke. The dress was old, her shoes were new. They were also blue. She dropped a penny in the toe and put them on. Barbara had let Lydia borrow her own veil for the costume, ostensibly so she could wear it this Halloween, with a strict injunction to take care of it. She smoothed down her hair and settled the veil, hiding her face under a layer of tulle, because it's bad luck if the groom sees the bride before the wedding and she needed all the luck she could get.

Then she laid the final draft of the prenup (printed in a small, hard to read calligraphic font) out with a pen, her purple bouquet, and a boutonniere.

Lastly, she took up the ring (That she had barely been able to save in the frenzy to remove all reminders directly after the incident, which she'd kept because it was morbidly interesting, as a little memento of a momentous occasion in her life.) and said, "Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!"

-SCENE BREAK-

The Waiting Room was really goddamn boring.

Hardly anything changed (especially after his head had unshrunk).

It could have been five minutes, it could have been five centuries, but his queue number was next! Fan-fucking-tastic. Time for another 'interview' with Juno. He loved her to bits, seriously, cross his unbeating heart, but she was a rule-book thumping harridan. But he'd got her good this time! It was all done legit – his little Lyds had agreed to marry him fair and square, and he was off to complete that ceremony and get his green card just as soon as Juno was finished yelling at him. Maybe before she even started! And, hey, maybe she would give them her blessing! He snorted, and greedily watched as the sign ticked over that last, beautiful digit.

That's when he felt the summons.

"Shiiiiiii-" The waiting room blurred into a mess of beige. "-iiit." He had to blink and rub his eyes to make sure he wasn't hallucinating a featureless room with a bunch of boxes haphazardly stacked everywhere. He started to turn around and noticed he'd materialized with his foot in a box. "Shit." Well, at least he was making a bad impression on an empty room….

"Beetle-" ventured a querying voice.

"Ah-ah-ah! No B-words!" He whirled around, surreptitiously trying to shake his foot free, but forgetting to make it incorporeal the first couple of times.

Then he noticed the whole veil, wedding dress, gaping hole ensemble and blanched a little greener. "Whoa." Broads killed on their wedding day were touchy with a capital T. Think a living bridezilla is bad? Just wait until you've met one that had all her hard work and dreams and PLANNING thwarted on the very cusp of the fulfillment of the Most Important Day of Her Life.

"So, uh…" He checked her ring finger. Bare. Fuckfuckfuck. He managed a half-hearted grin. "Shotgun wedding?" He winced as she took a shocked step back. Probably he shouldn't have mentioned the wound. He prayed she was in a weepy mood and not an angry-tear-your-balls-off mood but he couldn't tell with that veil in the way. And then, finally, he noticed the other hand holding up a ring. His ring.

"You don't remember me?"

"…Lydia?" For about a microsecond he was stupefied.

Then in an instant he was crushing her in his arms. "Babes, I can't leave you alone for a minute! How could this happen?" He melodramatically raised his face to the heavens and shouted something about cruel fates and lives being snuffed out in their prime, at which he suddenly held her out at arm's length and, squinting through the veil, asked, "You are still hot under there, right?" And then his gaze traveled down. "You grew up real niiice," he leered.

Lydia was mostly ignoring his dramatics, being shocked and upset that she had spent so much time thinking about him when he barely recognized her. How many living girls had he tried to con into marrying him, anyway? At least the bastard hadn't forgotten her name!

Then he had his hand on her ass and she was pushing at it and trying to squirm away when a change came over him. He went dead still and grabbed the hand about to slap him.

"Hey," he growled indignantly. "Just who were you trying to get hitched to? You were affianced to ME!" he affected a snotty accent.

"Who…what the hell are you talking about? I'm trying to marry you! What do you mean, 'were'? Are you trying to tell me you don't WANT me anymore?" She shoved at his shoulder with her free hand. She had a fleeting thought that she should be glad if he called the whole thing off, but still! It was insulting. As if he could really do better than her! Hell, she was the one marrying down! Way down. As in, six feet under.

He disengaged and started nervously adjusting the collar of his sandy maroon tux. "Well, uh…NO. There's not much point anymore, after all." He grinned. "But we can still be really good friends…"

He trailed off with a shiver as the atmosphere of the room dropped at least ten degrees, and it's damn hard to make a ghost who's normally causing the cold spots shiver. Lydia threw the veil back, her brown eyes burning with a black fury. "Not much point! Did you not come back because you found someone else?" She felt like kicking herself (or better yet, him) for thinking that this JERK cared at all about having made a deal with her, when he obviously could trick any number of girls into marrying him. He'd probably been schmoozing nubile young women this whole damn time instead of suffering in the belly of a sand worm! "And after you blackmailed me into agreeing to marry you and dragged me to the altar and stole my voice and the Maitlands-!"

He interjected quickly there, trying to avoid the castration he sensed in the immediate future. "I saved them, just like I said I would!" He pointed out with both index fingers.

When she tried to continue ranting, reluctant to let go of a good complaint, he resorted to drastic measures. Distracting her by grabbing her around the waist (hey, who said drastic measures couldn't also be fun?) and pulling her close, he went on as sincerely as he could manage. "Babes, babes! You're twisting everything around! I didn't mean no as in I don't want to marry you, I meant no as in I don't NOT want to marry you!"

Having used up his quota of 'truthful' eye contact for at least a decade, he stuffed her head on his shoulder sending up a puff of yellow sand, then absently fingered her long black hair while wondering when she started wearing it down (he would have realized it was her the second he saw her old wild updo). He noted that she was now only a few inches shorter than him. He might have to stop slouching. Ha, yeah right.

He also noticed she was still breathing as every inhalation brushed her breasts over his chest, but he didn't think (with the head above the belt) much about it, as most ghosts took a century or so to kick the deeply ingrained habit. And hey, if she kept doing that, maybe it wouldn't be so bad being leg-shackled to a ghost. She obviously had a haunting gig out here, they were in some sort of attic closet judging by all the boxes, and she could still let him Out even if it wasn't permanent. Besides, what sort of heartless administer types would deny a husband visitation rights?

…All of them. Well, he could dream.

Lydia was in a bit of a quandary. Now that she had convinced him he really did want to marry her after all, how did she go about telling him that if he wanted to get the hell out of her life forever that would just be peachy with a side of keen?

Meanwhile, he was TOUCHING her again. And it was high time that he stopped. The Saturnine sand was not only making her eyes water and her nose itch, it reeked of what she assumed was sandworm because it wasn't like anything she remembered of eau de Beetlejuice (heavy on the ew). But even damp cellar smell was better than THIS. She grimaced and wanted to yell at him to let go, but she was afraid that if she opened her mouth she might find out what sandwormy sand tasted like. "Mmmmrph!"

When she tried squeezing her arms in between them to push him away, he only pulled her in closer, trapping her arms in an awkward T-rex pose. Scrabbling at the ruffles on his tux and wiggling informed her that, yes, he was very solid, and that, no, she wasn't going anywhere. In fact, he was remarkably solid for a ghost – Adam and Barbara had always seemed to be barely there, like they were made of heavy air and if she just _pushed_ she could walk right through them.

Well, at least he wasn't groping her – the hand on her head was actually kind of nice. She couldn't remember the last time somebody had played with her hair.

And then an ill-timed wiggle brought her hips in contact with his, and he was…was…and then he ground into her, cackling. A flare of white hot mortification shot up her spine and she stomped on his foot, getting in an elbow to the solar plexus, and he yelped and jumped back.

"What was that for?" he shouted.

She glared at him, her cheeks uncharacteristically red and her fists clenched. "You reek like sandworms, for one thing!"

He looked nonplussed for a moment. "I do?" He sniffed his armpit thoughtfully, which made him gag and go eurgh with his alarmingly long, striped tongue sticking out. "You know, you're right. And when you're right, you're right." He made a show of brushing himself off, and he was wearing a striped suit and the yellow sand and unfortunate smell that accompanied it was gone, leaving behind only his own patina of dirt and mold. "But that's what happens when you get eaten by a sandworm – you know I hate 'em. But now that that's taken care of," he dusted his hands off, "C'mere and gimme a kiss!" He opened his arms wide and advanced on her, grinning maniacally.

Lydia dodged desperately around a stack of boxes. Maybe if she kept him talking…? "If you hate it so much, then why didn't you poof it away before?"

"I can't do shit in the Waiting Room, it's a curse, really. And that's juice, babes, not 'poof'" he said, trying to look innocent while inching closer. "I'm not some effeminate nancy boy ghost, y'know?"

"No," Lydia said while backing away, "I don't know."

"Well, why don't you come over here and I'll show ya, then!" He waggled his eyebrows.

"No, I don't think so." She was shaking her head.

"Aw, c'mon Lyds! Whassamatter? We're gonna get hitched!"

She blinked and he was latching onto her from behind. "Ah!" she shrieked and jumped as he licked her ear. She elbowed him in the gut and turned on him when he let go. "We need to lay down some ground rules, first! So just sit down or something and behave!" She pointed at the chair on the other side of the room.

Frowning sulkily he just floated up in the air and lounged. "I don't know what your problem is. YOU called me, YOU wanted me, and now you're acting all virginal." He blinked at her fierce blush. "You are!" He rolled over and propped his chin on his fist, chortling and leering. "Don' worry 'bout it, babes. I can make it good for you. I've had lots of practice."

"That right there is what I'm worried about!" She crossed her arms. "You're a…a man whore!"

He spluttered at this, mouthing denials.

"I'm not going to stand for you hitting on anything with a uterus," she went on. Figuring this was as good an opening as any, she went to the desk and held out her carefully prepared prenup to him.

He took it as if it was going to blow up, and raised one wickedly angled eyebrow. "What the hell's this?"

"Our new prenuptial agreement."

He didn't like the sound of that. He especially didn't like the smug little smile on her face as she said it. He pulled out a thick pair of glasses from his front pocket and glanced over the closely printed, nearly illegible script with the eyes of a man who had spent centuries reading Neitherworld paperwork as Juno's assistant. It was a pretty good attempt – she was a sly little minx, he had to give her that. And he really didn't mind most of the laughable 'restrictions.' It wouldn't be that hard to get her to beg him to touch her (tch, virgins), he hadn't really been planning a big exposé to reveal the truth of the afterlife, and he didn't much like killing people because then he had to deal with their ghosts bitching at him afterwards, and ghosts were a lot harder to shut up than breathers. She hadn't even thought to put down 'No juicing me into a gag if you get annoyed with my yammering.'

No, what he had a problem with was the cheating clause. Eternity was an awfully long time to be stuck with a jealous shrew. Yeah, sure, the sanctity of marriage, right, but what was the harm in a little ogle or a pinch here and there? It wasn't like he'd actually DO anything, he'd still be coming home to her at night, wouldn't he? Besides, you'd think she'd know that marriages in the afterlife already had safeguards, part of the whole 'soul binding' thing (of course you could opt for a ceremony that didn't, heh). This was seriously overkill.

He eyed the bloody hole in her stomach and wondered if she had a complex about infidelity because her old groom-to-be had shot her for another woman. As he raised his gaze to hers he knew instinctively that asking would set off the angry tempest brewing in her womanly bosom. His gaze slid back down. She had really great knockers. Hell, that guy must have been an idiot. No, no! He tore his gaze away. No set of boobs was great enough to offset the nagging of a wife who imagined adultery in everything he did. But maybe she just needed a little time and reassurance to get over her death…yeah, he could 'reassure' her all night long…but first to take care of this pesky little detail.

He folded up the prenup and stuck it in his pocket along with the glasses. Two could play at this game, ha. He put on his 'Juilliard' face. "I shall have my lawyer take a look at this and get the amended version right back to you. See ya." He made as if to leave.

"Wait a minute!" She grabbed his sleeve. This was not going according to plan! He was supposed to just sign it and marry her on the spot then go away, not take it to someone who would explain it!

He turned around. "Yeeeeeees?"

"We're not…going to have the ceremony now?" she asked.

"Gee, babes, in a hurry? Can't wait to get your hands on me, eh?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets, smiling.

"Last time you couldn't get it over with fast enough!" she said, frowning.

He scowled thunderously. "Last time, your friends the Maitlands were hell bent on breaking us up! Wouldn't know compatibility if it bit 'em in the ass!" He leaned against a patch of air and crossed his ankles, going on in a more normal tone, "We're not going to invite them this time, are we? I mean, there's a right way to crash a party and then there's the fucking wrong sandworm way, right?"

She was suddenly struck with a sobering thought. "You're not going to...do anything to them, are you?" She remembered in vivid detail a gigantic snake and a carnival hat.

He looked surprised, as if the thought hadn't occurred to him. And, honestly, it hadn't. He was done with the Maitlands, that was the past, he didn't care what happened to them now. Of course, he wouldn't say no to playing a few 'pranks' if somebody stuck those yuppies in the same room with him…. "No," he said, pretending to have to think about it. "Should I?"

"No!"

"Hey, babes, you gonna let go of my arm sometime soon? I got things to do." He looked pointedly at her hand, secretly gleeful that SHE was touching HIM instead of the other way around. Soon it would be more than just his arm!

Surprised, she let go like he was burning her hand and then stared at it like it had betrayed her. "What things?" she asked suspiciously.

"I need to go see my lawyer about this 'prenuptial agreement' of yours. I said that already. Were ya too busy staring at my perfect good looks to listen to me? Ya need to learn to multitask, like me," he said while staring at her mouth. It was such a perfect little red cupid's bow. He really wanted to find out if it was lipstick, not that it mattered – maybe she was born with it, maybe it's make-up, but now that she died with it it's permanent.

Oh, no. She was not going to just let him Out, and then set him loose to go do whatever he wanted. Who knew if he'd even come back? If he wanted to leave, she had to put him Back. "You need to go? Ok, then. Beet-!"

He cut her off, waving his arms in an x. "Ah! No need for that! I can get there fine by myself. Quick as a wink, back in a jiffy, you get the picture!"

"I can't just leave you Out," she said firmly. "Juno would keep me on her desk in a jar. She probably won't be too happy about this as it is."

"So Juno's your caseworker?" He snorted, shaking his head. "Tsk tsk, summoning a poltergeist…," he said in a terrible impersonation of Juno, using her voice but not her mannerisms.

A laugh escaped Lydia's mouth before she could prevent it, although she was looking at him like he was crazy. Well, crazier than usual. Her caseworker? Why would she have a caseworker? Because she made a deal with Beetlejuice? Something was off about how he was acting. If he still needed to marry a living woman, why wasn't he hauling her off to the reverend right now? A living woman…he thought she was dead! A deep belly laugh burst out, as she touched her 'ghastly wound,' but she managed to stop before she gave the game away. God! This was priceless.

"Y'know, if you just wanted to skip this whole 'prenup' thing..." He glanced over at her.

She frowned sternly. "No prenup, no wedding."

"And the only way I'm leaving without the B-words is…?"

"If we get married."

They both stood there for a moment considering that.

"You didn't even bring witnesses."

"Damn! I knew I was forgetting something!"

-SCENE BREAK-

And in her office, where she had been scrying on the proceedings with a piece of glass (much less obtrusive than a mirror) ever since Beetlejuice had disappeared from the Waiting Room, was Juno. And she may have looked judgmental on the outside for appearance's sake, but inside she was laughing her ass off.


	2. Chapter 2: In Which They Visit a Lawyer

Disclaimer: I own nothing but my plot twists and original characters.

A/N: First of all, shout out to badkidoh! Reviews are like candy…sweet, sweet candy.

PREVIOUSLY:

A living woman…he thought she was dead! A deep belly laugh burst out, as she touched her 'ghastly wound,' but she managed to stop before she gave the game away. God! This was priceless.

"Y'know, if you just wanted to skip this whole 'prenup' thing...." He glanced over at her.

She frowned sternly. "No prenup, no wedding."

"And the only way I'm leaving without the B-words is…?"

"If we get married."

They both stood there for a moment considering that.

"You didn't even bring witnesses."

"Damn! I knew I was forgetting something!"

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Two: In Which Our Hero and His Bride Visit a Lawyer

Lydia glared at Beetlejuice.

Beetlejuice leered at Lydia.

Finally, he said, "Well, isn't this here just a gen-u-wine Mexican standoff!" Suddenly they were both wearing ridiculously large cowboy hats and pointing old-fashioned pistols at each other's heads.

He pulled the trigger and she shrieked, ducking and covering. He was insane! And he thought she was a ghost already! She was too young to die! She'd never learned to parasail!

He was laughing hysterically.

She cautiously peeked, then patted herself down to find no holes, other than the obvious. A stupid 'BANG!' sign was sticking out of the barrel of his gun. "You BASTARD." She advanced on him, intent to maim. She'd had just about enough of this! She wasn't fifteen anymore, letting herself be terrorized by amateur theatrics!

He hurriedly sent the guns away. "Now, babes…let's be reasonable here." He seemed to notice anew the gory wound painted on her stomach and completely misconstrued everything. He backed away right through the boxes. "I know it must be a sensitive subject, but you need to learn how to take a joke!"

"Oh, yeah?" She poked him in the chest, encountering nothing but air. "How's this for a joke? Knock! Knock!" She leaned back out of his odoriferous personal space and crossed her arms.

At length he answered, fiddling with his cuffs. "Who's there?"

"Beetle." Her voice could have cut glass. (Elsewhere Juno was cursing at her newly broken scrying window.)

"Beetle who?" The corners of his mouth optimistically began turning up while the rest of his face, more in tune with reality, frowned.

"Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! B-"

Then his tongue was in her mouth, jamming up the last word. So she bit it. He made a muffled sound of pain, but it didn't seem to stop him. Impossibly, the tip of his tongue stretched out and wound around hers. All warmth fled before its icy stroke and she nearly had a heart attack because it wasn't bad. There was a complete lack of horrible going on. Her jaw creaked open. In fact, it was sort of…mmm. When he withdrew, she nearly followed him back, her arms twining around his neck. Then her fingertips encountered something strangely soft and fuzzy growing on his skin. And she remembered that it was mold. Because he was dead. And that was…bad?

Then the hand that had crept below her waist squeezed, and reality rushed back into the world. She remembered that she was very ANGRY at him. He must have seen the thundercloud gathering on her face because he set her upright (when had he dipped her?), and said, "Why don't ya just come with me, Lyds?"

"Is that even…possible?" Caught off guard by the idea of finally going to the Neitherworld, she still swatted at his errant hand.

"'Course, babes." It would break a couple dozen rules about the mandatory haunting gig, but what's a coupla rules to him? "Ghost with the most, here." And what she didn't know, wouldn't hurt him. "But you gotta stand reeeeal close."

At this, she looked doubtful. "Why?"

"Oh, y'know, inter-dimensional vortex mechanics, wormhole creation…it's tricky business. Ya don't want to leave pieces behind, do ya?"

She stepped back into the circle of his arms. What could it hurt? If he couldn't actually take her along, because he didn't know she was alive, he'd be gone. Back where he belonged. But if he could take her along, she'd get to see sights even the Maitlands couldn't tell her about as they were under house arrest until their time was up, and she could just stage an enormous disagreement over the prenup with the lawyer until Beetlejuice gave up (again) on marrying her. Either way, she'd be happy and her conscience would be clear. And, well, if it was breaking a few rules…she didn't want to know. Plausible deniability.

"A little closer." At her penetrating look, he pointedly put his hands behind his back. "You want to lose an arm and a leg?"

"Hm." There was about a foot of space between them. She shuffled in a half-step.

"Cloooooser." He tried not to grin. Too much, anyway.

She inched in a hairsbreadth away, bravely ignoring the dank cellar smell, which wasn't actually that bad when you got used to it. Even the lingering hint of burnt tobacco was bearable. Not that she wanted to hang around him long enough to get used to it.

"Now," he rumbled in her ear, "ya need to hold on to me."

Tentatively, she placed her palms on his back, hugging him loosely.

"I don't know, that's maybe not enough. If you want to keep all your toes, you should put your leg around me, too." He raised a wicked eyebrow speculatively.

Deadpan, she said, "I'm going to take my chances."

He shrugged. "Suit yourself." Then he opened the locked dormitory door behind him, which opened not on the unfamiliar hallway it was supposed to, but an unfamiliar office, wood paneled and lined with books. Scooping her up in a bear hug and crushing her to his beer belly, he stepped through and kicked the door shut. "Here we are!"

Her hands clenched around his suit jacket so fiercely it was a miracle it didn't rip. "Buh! Guh! Yuh!" she spluttered in rage. She pounded on his shoulder. "You…you sneaky bastard! Put me down right now!" He dropped her. She stumbled and fell on her backside, where she proceeded to kick his ankle with her pointy, blue high heels.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, BEETLEJUICE," said a computerized voice from the desk.

Turning and holding out his hands, Beetlejuice said, "My ol' pal, my bestest buddy, my one and only court-appointed lawyer!" He lunged across the desk to embrace the lawyer, lifting him out of his seat, then abruptly letting go and yanking Lydia to her feet while she was struggling with the tangled train of her wedding dress. "I'd like ya to meet my lovely fiancée, Lydia…" He pursed his lips in thought. "D? T…something?"

Gritting her teeth and digging her nails into his elbow where he'd tucked her arm around his, she ground out, "Deetz." She would have added some other, very uncomplimentary names for Beetlejuice, but she was reluctant to make more of a scene in front of the dignified stranger.

This lawyer was an old-fashioned gentleman, wearing something vaguely 18th century under the voluminous black court robe. The long, curled grey wig of the uniform was jammed on top of another, white wig which reminded her of George Washington. The most disturbing thing about him was how blue his classic face was, with his cravat askew and pulled so tight she'd be amazed if he could breathe…oh. Right.

"Babes, this is Mr. Jacob Newton." He mockingly enunciated each syllable very carefully. "And he don't appreciate nicknames."

Mr. Newton started typing at a clunky machine sitting to one side on his desk. A second later the monotone voice issued forth. "MY CONDOLENCES, MISS DEETZ."

"Thanks," she said wryly. "It's nice to meet you, too." Silence stretched on uncomfortably as the lawyer frowned disapprovingly, Beetlejuice beamed, and Lydia wondered how to escape. "Um…Are…?"

Before she could finish, he typed, "NO RELATION."

She stared. "What?"

"TO SIR ISAAC NEWTON. THAT IS WHAT YOU WERE GOING TO ASK." He looked a bit taken aback.

"Who?"

"Guy who invented gravity, babes." Beetlejuice chortled. "What are they teaching you in school nowadays, geeze!"

"HE DID NOT INVENT GRAVITY. HE MERELY GOT HIT ON THE HEAD WITH AN APPLE. ANYONE COULD HAVE DONE IT."

Beetlejuice made a show of covering his mouth and whispering loudly to her out of the corner of his mouth, "It's a sensitive subject. You should probably drop it."

Newton made a choked noise. "IF I COULD SIGH, I WOULD. WHY ARE YOU HERE, BEETLEJUICE?"

"Can you knock it off with the B-words?"

"WHY ARE YOU HERE, BEETLEJUICE?"

Lydia didn't know exactly what she expected to happen when a speech synthesizer said the name three times, but apparently it was nothing much. The tableau was this: Beetlejuice, disgruntled and tapping his fingers on the desk while holding her arm with a death grip, Newton, calmly sitting with perfect posture and just barely not smiling smugly.

Lydia could sigh, so she did. While rolling her eyes. Plucking her contract out of Beetlejuice's suit pocket using just index and thumb so as to avoid touching anything icky, like his suit jacket, she dropped it on the desk. "He wants you to go over our," she nearly choked on the word, "prenuptial agreement."

"MY AREA OF EXPERTISE IS CRIMINAL JUSTICE, BUT IF THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE HIM LEAVE…." Newton gingerly picked up the paper and unfolded it, scanning the contents.

Beetlejuice was looking at her with a mix of suspicion and mild awe. "How did you find it? You didn't even pull out so much as a spider with it."

"You've got to be kidding me." She raised a sardonic eyebrow. "I saw you put it there."

"That don't mean nothin', babes." He lugged a mangled tuba out of his front pocket. A mutant snake rooster which had been nesting in the horn hissed at him. "Whoah. You'd think I'd remember putting something like that in my pocket…." He stuffed the creature back in, the fabric wriggling and bulging for a moment before it lay flat again, but he studied the tuba. "Why the hell do I have this?" He chucked it over his shoulder, where it disappeared.

"MISS DEETZ, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SIT DOWN."

"Thanks, don't mind if I do!" Beetlejuice plopped down on one elegant chair, turning it into a chintzy love seat. He patted the cushion next to him. "Room for two, babes…."

She eyed the ratty holes in the upholstery, the escaping springs, and his leer, then decided to sit on the other chair. It turned out that he'd had the right idea – it was like sitting on her grandmother's stuffy, horse-hair-stuffed antiques. No give at all. She might as well be sitting on an attractively carved rock. She shifted discretely, trying to get comfortable, and he snickered at her.

Mr. Newton finally looked up from the prenup.

She nervously awaited his pronouncement, wondering if the contents of the contract would make Beetlejuice mad enough to just break it off right then and there.

"YOU MAY NOT KNOW THIS, YOUNG LADY, BUT MOST NEITHERWORLDERS PUT THESE KINDS OF AGREEMENTS DIRECTLY INTO THEIR WEDDING VOWS. IS THERE A SPECIFIC REASON WHY YOU WANT TO HAVE A SEPARATE CONTRACT?"

She blinked. "No. I mean, I didn't know. I guess there isn't." She shot a glare over at Beetlejuice. She reflected on their failed wedding of four years ago, in which there had been no promises at all, not even having and holding, in sickness and in health. Even if he was in a hurry, she doubted it was just because it made the ceremony shorter! "_Someone_ neglected to tell me that."

The someone in question shrugged, saying, "Not my fault you never asked."

"I SUGGEST YOU VISIT A MARRIAGE COUNSELOR." At her puzzled look, he added, "WHILE ANYONE NEEDS COUNSELING AFTER SPENDING ANY AMOUNT OF TIME WITH BEETLEJUICE-"

A tick developing from conditioned response to hearing his name, Beetlejuice grumped, "Not _everyone_." At her incredulous look, he flicked his tongue at her.

"Counseling is sounding better and better," she muttered.

Giving them both a quieting frown, Newton continued typing. "MARRIAGE COUNSELORS ALSO AID IN PICKING OUT CEREMONIES AND VOWS."

"Well!" Beetlejuice jumped up, making a show of straightening his lapel. "Since ya can't help us out, me and my Lyds," he grabbed her hand and she got up and followed rather than have it pulled off as he strode to the door, "are off to see these Ma-rage Con-seller people. Thanks for nothin', Newt!"

The door was slamming behind them before he could type a reply. Picking up the contract left behind on his desk, he read the penalty clause again and made the strangled noise that passed for chuckling for him. He tucked the paper safely away so he could take it out and read it for laughter therapy whenever he had to deal with that poltergeist again. If anyone was going to be wearing the pants in that relationship, it wasn't going to be Beetlejuice.

--This is a Scene Break. To return to your regularly scheduled fanfic, skip to next line.--

A bit surprised when the door opened onto a waiting room, Lydia didn't protest as Beetlejuice hustled her out of the office and past the secretary's desk. She knew it wasn't THE Waiting Room, based on descriptions given by the Maitlands. For one thing, it was also wood-paneled and antiqued. For another, the secretary could not be mistaken for Miss Argentina even by a very drunk, blind, deaf person. Even in Braille the difference would be astounding. He was seven feet tall, covered in stitching, and had bolts in his neck. He grumbled at them.

Beetlejuice sing-songed, "Hi, Frankie. Bye, Frankie."

And then they were out another door into a linoleum-tiled corridor the likes of which are seen in institutions the world over and even under, where Beetlejuice finally slowed to a saunter. Catching her breath, Lydia wondered why it felt like she was forgetting something.


	3. Chapter 3: A Very Long Corridor

DISCLAIMER: Right, I don't make any money from this, I do it for the lulz. I don't own them, I'm just playing with them for a while.

A/N: I had some writer's block. I guess I got over it. To those who reviewed, you know who you are ;D, this chapter would probably not exist if it wasn't for your encouragement!

PREVIOUSLY:

The door was slamming behind them before he could type a reply. Picking up the contract left behind on his desk, he read the penalty clause again and made the strangled noise that passed for chuckling for him. He tucked the paper safely away so he could take it out and read it for laughter therapy whenever he had to deal with that poltergeist again. If anyone was going to be wearing the pants in that relationship, it wasn't going to be Beetlejuice. Despite the fact that he was the one actually wearing pants.

--SCENE BREAK--

And then they were out another door into a linoleum-tiled corridor the likes of which are seen in institutions the world over and even under, where Beetlejuice finally slowed to a saunter. Catching her breath, Lydia wondered why it felt like she was forgetting something.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Three: In Which There Is A Very Long Corridor

As they strolled along, he started whistling and swinging their conjoined hands back and forth. Maybe that was what she had momentarily forgotten? She contemplated trying to break his clammy clasp, but decided it wasn't worth the bother. Soap was invented for a reason. It was just her hand, after all.

After five minutes of walking down the never-ending corridor of endless doors of all descriptions, the whistling had gone from 'passable' to 'irritating' and she was heartily regretting her decision.

"Why aren't we there yet?"

He stopped whistling. "Huh? You say somethin'?"

She silently thanked whatever powers might control Beetlejuice for the end of 'The Song that Never Ends.' "I mean, why are we walking there?"

"I didn't think you had the hang of floating yet, babes. But, hell, if you insist!" His next step was taken into the air, the next was faster, then he was taking a running leap and they were zooming down the corridor. A scream caught in her throat, she was dangling by the one hand with her dress flapping behind like a banner. His grin grew to insane proportions in a parody of g-force, while she barely caught her veil as it flew off.

"This isn't what I meant, either!" she eventually managed to gasp out.

"Whaaaaat?" he shouted back. "I can't hear ya!"

She took as deep a breath as she could and belted, "Just stop for a minute, will you?" They whipped past some innocent bystanders, scattering paperwork and leaving wind-tunnel hair in their wake.

"Louder! I still can't hear ya!"

"STOOOOOOOOOOOP!" She collided with his stock still form blocking the corridor, sending them both crashing to the linoleum. "Oof!"

A few of the doors were opening and curious heads were peeking out, but when they saw who was out there they quickly retreated. Some locked their doors.

He was smirking at her. "Y'know, ya want a piece of me all ya gotta do is ask." He ran his hands over her thighs where she was straddling him, bunching up her skirt as he went.

She huffed and struggled to her feet, and if she accidentally-on-purpose stomped on him on the way up, well…he deserved it.

"Argh!"

She pulled her zombie bridal gown straight and smoothed it down, inwardly approving of the wear and tear that was beginning to make it look really _authentic_, although it was apparently good enough to fool a certain ghost with the most in the first place. In fact, she wondered a little bit about that – but if it gave her the opportunity to lay down a few stipulations in their marriage vows, she wasn't complaining. If it got her out of marrying him at all, she might frame it and hang it on her wall. It could be that he simply doesn't pay attention to anything that doesn't start with a T or an A.

He was still groaning in pain, curled up on the floor.

Daintily lifting her hem, she nudged him with a pointy, high heel toe. "Come on, get up. I think you're overreacting."

"I think you broke something," he whimpered in a way that someone who has only heard whimpering described before might whimper. In other words, he merely sounded sort of whiny and completely unbelievable.

"I did not!"

"You stabbed me with your shoe!" He uncurled enough to dramatically fling his arms to the side in order to reveal a gaping wound remarkably like the one painted on her dress, much too big to have been hidden behind his hands. He stared at her expectantly.

She was clearly unimpressed. "You can't really expect me to believe my shoe did that. Look, it doesn't even have any blood on it." She showed him the heel, which had mysteriously developed a case of dripping with blood in the last five seconds. She frowned and tried to shake the excess red off.

He smirked, but when her gaze lanced over he clutched at the wound and groaned, trying to look pitiful. "Oh, I'm dyin' here!" He stopped to think for a second – that had to be one of his worst lies ever. "…Again!"

"Stop being so ridiculous. You're a ghost, you can't die again. I bet it doesn't even hurt." Having said this, she leant down and poked it, expecting a workup as superficial as her own faux gory hole.

Imagine her surprise when her whole arm fell through with a squish.

"OHMIGOD! Ohmigod, ohmigod, ohmigod!" She fell to her knees and tried to gently extricate her arm from his stomach, but her hand slipped on the wet linoleum under him and she had to stop, fearful of hurting him. Her eyes flew to his. He was shaking! Was that real pain in his eyes? "Bee-" She barely stopped herself from saying his name. Who knows what would happen if he was put Back in this condition! "Beej, talk to me! What can I do?!"

"There's only one thing that you can do…" he said weakly, a muscle in his jaw spasming.

She leaned in closer as he trailed off. "What? What is it?"

"You can kiss it better!" He squeezed his eyes closed and puckered up.

Staring at the moss-encrusted lips he fully expected her to kiss, she steeled her nerves, took a deep breath…and actually thought about what she was doing. She sat back on her heels, nonplussed. That wasn't pain in his eyes. He was not shaking in shock, but in laughter. He was a poltergeist that did not need to use any internal organs he might possess. But she was going to find some way of killing him. Again.

"You jerk!" She ripped her arm free of the squelchy mess and scrambled to her feet, fighting down nausea but determined to stomp on him even harder than before. "You're such a jackass!"

Correctly inferring from the tone of her voice that she was not going to be complying with his simple request, he hurriedly opened his eyes and managed to roll out of the way just in time to avoid her descending high heel. "Hey!" He leapt up, before she could try again.

"I actually thought for one minute that you were – I don't know what!" She really wanted to throw something at him, but doubted the veil she was clutching in a white-knuckled grip would make the sort of impression she wanted.

"That was stupid," he said.

She lifted haunted eyes from contemplating her veil and asked, "Can't you stop being an asshole for five minutes?" Then she calmly bent down and took off her shoes.

Some instinct for self-preservation arose, long dormant and unused in his existence as a ghost because there were so few things that could actually harm him, which made him think twice about replying with a flippant no. At a loss, he said, "No?"

She chucked a blue, spiky high heel at his head.

He ducked, cursing. It was obviously not a very good self-preservation instinct, seeing as he was dead as a doornail.

"Stand still, damn it!" She threw the other heel at him. It clonked him square in the forehead, leaving a neat shoe print.

"What the fuck-!" He rubbed at the marks. They did not go away, and were in fact bruising.

Bereft of high heeled ammunition, but still in the grip of rage, she threw her veil at him too. As she watched the veil she had borrowed from Barbara flutter halfway towards him and then land in the puddle of blood, she wished she hadn't.

Beetlejuice's rotten self-preservation instinct, sensing a reprieve, urged him to – say something? Fix it? Do the hula? Figuring anything had to be better than what he thought she'd do next (which was to animate her shoes to hit him over and over, and by the way she was staring fixedly she wasn't far off from figuring out how), he got rid of all the blood and the wound he'd juiced. "Look, I'm cured, it's a goddamned miracle."

She examined her arm, her sleeve as white as if it was never stuck in anybody's stomach, though the cuff was tattered.

"Lyds?" The veil floated into his hands, drifting through the air like a pale, unblemished phantom. He cautiously advanced and plopped it on her head. Suddenly she was sporting the same riotous updo he'd stuck her in four years ago. She didn't know where he'd learned about ratting, but if she ever found out there would be well-deserved bloodshed.

She pressed her lips together. "The last time you did my hair I was picking tangles out for weeks. You'd better not have just tied all my hair in knots."

"Ahaha…would I do that?" Her riotous hair fell into her normal softer, but still wild, style. "Seriously, babes, you wound me. Heh. Get it? Wound me?" Cackling, he pointed to the hole in his suit which he had forgotten to fix, through which molding fish belly white skin flashed the universe.

Gritting her teeth and casting about for the remains of her anger to throw at him and coming up nearly empty-handed, she said, "Yeah, I get it. Hilarious. Now shut up about it and fix your shirt already." She just didn't have the resources to be mad at him ALL THE TIME. Her own biology was conspiring against her, running out of adrenaline and other vital anger ingredients. She envied him for a moment for not having any stupid biology, being dead and all, as he smoothed down his suit and it was like new (that is to say, like he'd been buried in it, not ripped but certainly wrinkled and in need of a wash or three). If she had ghostly powers, he'd be in a world of trouble!

Her shoes nudged her feet. He was looking at her as if he expected her to yell at him for fetching them, too. She contemplated it, if only because it was still easier than thanking him for anything. In the end she just stepped into her high heels, holding her train out of the way.

"You know, you can still change your mind," she said, and whether it was more to him or to herself, she didn't know.

"Nah, babes." He grinned, latching onto her waist. It wasn't everyday that a hot chick demanded he marry her before they got to it – in fact, that had never happened before. (Before threatening Lydia as a giant snake, he'd given little thought to marriage, despite the interesting benefits to marrying the living. He just wasn't the kinda guy who settled down, and it's a damn sight easier to get schmucks to say a name three times than 'I do.') The throwing stuff at him part, though, that had happened more than he liked to admit over the centuries. "I like a good scare!" And he didn't want to be pummeled with shoes for breaking up with her – he didn't trust this strangely accepting mood she'd fallen into.

His hand started creeping down and she sighed, grabbing on and holding it out of sheer self-defense. "You just don't quit, do you."

He laughed and stole a kiss, his tongue darting in for a taste before she could even blink and then gone. She hadn't had time to feel much of anything in the second or two it took, but afterwards her lips tingled like a limb that had fallen asleep. She bit her lower lip, chewing on it. Was it supposed to be like that?

"So, um…how far's this marriage counselor, anyway?" She started walking again to get some distance, but he wasn't moving and she had to turn and take a step backwards because he wouldn't let go of her hand. She finally looked up again and he was just as irritatingly smug as she'd thought he would be.

"We're there, babes. Didn't you notice the fucking huge sign? It's kind of hard to miss." He forked his thumb at a pair of institutional doors with a metal sign overhead that read, 'Department of Marital Relations,' in letters a foot high.

"That's not suggestive at all, is it?" she remarked.

He snorted, reeling her back in by the arm. "I could suggest some…_marital relations_ to ya…."

Before he could wrap himself around her again, though, she twined her fingers through his and stationed their joined hands at her side. Merely so that he could not grope her anymore, and not at all because she liked holding his clammy, fuzzy with mold, hand. Because she didn't. The deceptive strength of his grip was in no way reassuring in the sterile confines of the otherworldly bureaucracy, where a pervasive, numbing malaise was soaking into her bones. It was no place for the living.

He was pulling on the push handle of the door when she remembered what she had wanted to ask in the first place. "Hey."

"Goddamned doors – this is bullshit! They can't ban me from an entire fuckin' division-"

She squeezed his hand. "Hey!"

"What?!" He let go of the push bar with one final yank that bent it with a groan of tortured metal.

She dug her nails in his palm, narrowing her eyes at him as he winced. "You're supposed to push, moron."

"I knew that." He straightened his tie, rolling his shoulders while he surreptitiously tried to free his hand.

She held on tighter. "Anyway. Why did we have to take the long way when you can just open a door and make it go where you want?"

"This here's a government building. Ya think the administrative assholes would make it that easy to get around?" He gave up on tugging his hand free and shoved their joined hands in his pocket.

Unidentifiable squirming things made her let go and her hand beat a hasty retreat. "EW!" She shook her hand frantically but the little snake that had hitched a ride on her clung like a vine. "Get it off!"

"It's JUST a garden snake. It ain't gonna hurt ya none." He did not lift a finger to help her, as that would mean removing his hands from his pockets to where she might grab one again. Her girly nails were _sharp_. But he did add, "Moron."

"I hate snakes!" She attempted to pry the slender creature off while touching it as little as possible. It was dry and smooth and the skin gave until she could feel the pencil-thin ribcage wriggling. "Mice, rats, moths, bats, spiders…I like them! Why did it have to be a snake?!"

Now he was just plain offended. "I was a snake when you met me!"

"Yeah, and I hated you then, too. It was not what I'd call 'meeting'!" The green menace gave up on being her bracelet and slithered up her sleeve and down her bra, where it curled up and made itself at home, making her flesh crawl. She poked at it insistently but it wasn't budging, and there was no way to move the interloper without removing the lace that was obscuring her décolleté.

"Looks like ya've got a problem there, babes. I wouldn't be much of a gentleman, if I didn't help my gorgeous fiancée out, now, would I?" His grin was so wide, she could've sworn he had more teeth than nature gave man.

"If only I had known at the tender age of fifteen that the barest hint of possibly getting to touch my breasts would make you so helpful, I would have bargained more instead of agreeing to your first damned demand." As unappealing as the notion of partially undressing in front of Beetlejuice was, she wasn't quite sure which slithery fiend was worse – the one already in her underwear, or the one that wanted to get in her underwear.

"Oh ho, is that so?" Impossibly, the grin grew wider and more teeth appeared. "Well, maybe I want to actually get a lil' somthin' for my trouble this time, ya know what I mean?" He waggled his crazy eyebrows.

"Don't push your luck – I'm honoring that deal, even if it is four years later, you opportunistic ass. You can keep your trouble to yourself, as far as I'm concerned." The garden snake twitched its tail and settled deeper, making up her mind as she shuddered at the unpleasantly cool tickle. Screw the slightly taller bastard, the little one had to go! She backed out of range and reached for the zipper hidden behind the faux buttons at the mandarin collar.

"Sure 'bout that, babes?" He flipped out a switchblade, monogrammed and inlaid with black and white striped mother of pearl.

Her brow furrowed. "The hell?"

"Cut a hole," he gestured at the collar of her dress with the knife while she leaned away instinctively, "and ya don't gotta take it all off. But if ya really wanna, don't mind me. I'll just kick back and enjoy the free show." He held out the handle to her, smirking.

She put out her hand to take it but he snatched it back out of reach. Her tentative smile flatlined.

"Ah-ah! What'll ya gimme for it? I got a few ideas if ya can't think of anything…." His eyes traced a lecherous path over her figure, lingering on her chest.

Her fists clenched. Reasoning with him got nowhere fast. The snake in her bra hissed, jostled by her strident breaths. "Hm." She put on the innocently thoughtful expression which had fooled many an authority figure and tapped a finger against her mouth, circling behind him. He started to turn, watching her skeptically but stilled as she trailed her fingers over his shoulders and stood close enough behind him to lean in a little and whisper in his ear, wrinkling her nose at the smell of stagnant water and cigarette. "How about," her fingers walked down his chest to where he was clutching the switchblade slackly, "nothing?" She tugged the blade free, dancing away.

By the time he snapped his hanging jaw shut and turned around scowling, it was done. In fact, his jaw dropped back open. Lydia'd just plucked the lace away from her skin and started sawing delicately when the aging material had ripped off, leaving a hanky sized hole that revealed the plunging neckline of the bustier underneath. Eying the snippet of fabric dispassionately, she used it to scoop out the garden snake and bundle it up unhappily in one efficient move. Finally, she could breathe easy.

Or not. There were other things to consider.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice had sidled up to her, and now he plucked the fabric wrapped snake and his switchblade out of her grasp, flipping the knife shut, and pocketed both. Damn, he knew a hole big enough to fit a hand through would be big enough to peek, but damn!

"I was going to sew that back on," she pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest to try and block his view.

"Sew what now?" He craned his neck to the right and continued staring.

"The lace. Back on."

"I have NO idea what you're yammering about, babes," he said airily, patting his pocket contentedly. Yes, he decided, it was _much_ better to be able to look anytime he wanted rather than a one-time thing. "But, y'know, seeing as you did, in fact, use my property in a manner consistent with our deal, _vis_-à-_vis__, _help for certain rewards…I think ya owe me." He reached for her cleavage.

She shoved his hand away. She hadn't got rid of one intruder in her bra just to gain another! "And I think I offered you nothing."

He grabbed his lapels and rocked back on his heels to pontificate. "However, being that I didn't accept 'nothing' as a counter-offer, I repeat – ya owe me." He made another move for his chosen prize.

Successfully blocking, she refuted his argument, saying, "By that logic, there was no deal because I didn't agree to your proposed bargain in the first place."

"But! Ya proposed a counter-offer, which implies an _unspoken_ agreement. Therefore, ya have to lemme touch 'em!" He threw down his arms in a huff.

"No!"

"Aww, c'mon! Why the hell not?!" He tried to slide his hand in under her arms from the side.

Her elbow put an end to that idea, cutting off entry. "This is a public corridor!"

"So?! Nobody'll bother us! ...Not if they know what's good for 'em." He had the bright idea of putting her in a headlock and had wormed his other hand through her defenses when the door they were fighting in front of opened and an elderly couple came out.

Lydia froze, hunched over protectively under Beetlejuice, who took the opportunity to cup one breast and loosened the headlock to stroke her neck. Lydia mutely bit her lip, yanking on his hand and straightening up.

He said, "Hi. How ya doin'?"

The old woman, wearing a hospital gown draped around her worn, skeletal frame, tittered and hid a smile. The old man looked like he was about to run a marathon except for the purpling of his skin like lividity. He winked at them and said, "Come on dear, let's leave these two kids to themselves." The elderly couple walked off, holding hands and smiling. The old woman sighed something about young love.

"Hey!" Beetlejuice said. "I'm older'n both of ya combined."

Either they didn't hear, or they just laughed it off.

Lydia found her voice. "You…PERVERT! Leering, ANCIENT, grabby, DEMENTED PERVERT!"

He gave one last gentle squeeze and let go, his hand trailing up to her shoulder where he rubbed his thumb over her collarbone. He growled, "Cocktease," in her ear.

She ducked out of the circle of his arms and shoved him as hard as she dared. "Argh!"

Stumbling back a few feet, he went on as if uninterrupted. "Ya can't just offer a guy, y'know an everyday joe like myself, the moon…luminous, full moons," he had his hands cupped in front of him like he was weighing something, "and then tell 'em he can't touch! He only gets ta look at it, so tantalizingly close…it's inhumane!"

"Besides the fact that I didn't offer you ANYTHING, that's what the moon is for! Looking and not touching! If you hadn't noticed, its way far off in the sky!" She just wanted to lay down and beat her forehead on the floor until her brain felt not as broken.

"So it ain't a perfect simile, call it poetic license." He took a drag on a cig that he pulled lit out of nowhere.

She took the cigarette and dropped it on the ground, where she proceeded to viciously grind it under her heel. "That's." Stomp. "A." Stomp. "Metaphor!" Stomp. "And NO smoking." Feeling unutterably drained, she hooked her arm through his to make him support some of her weight and said, "Let's just get this over with."

He quirked a brow at the sad remains of his smoke. "Yes m'm." He saluted, then kicked open the door.

They went through.


	4. Chapter 4: They Make an Appointment

DISCLAIMER: This is a not-for-profit story about characters that I'm borrowing. I promise, I'll put them back when I'm done!

A/N: To those who've reviewed (badkidoh, roolsilver, Darbanville, and Jessica) and keep reviewing (badkidoh!!), your comments and encouragement have kept me posting when common sense says I should stop! XD Anyway, writing this chapter was like mining for fish. So if it sucks, drop me a flame and we'll all have s'mores, mmkay?

PREVIOUSLY:

She took the cigarette and dropped it on the ground, where she proceeded to viciously grind it under her heel. "That's." Stomp. "A." Stomp. "Metaphor!" Stomp. "And NO smoking." Feeling unutterably drained, she hooked her arm through his to make him support some of her weight and said, "Let's just get this over with."

He quirked a brow at the sad remains of his smoke. "Yes m'm." He saluted, then kicked open the door.

They went through.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Four: In Which Our Hero and His Bride Make An Appointment

The grey doors opened on a dreary room designed to wear the soul down to hopelessness – in other words, it looked like a DMV lobby. It was filled with people, some of whom Lydia would hesitate to even call ghosts, they were so clearly nonhuman. Beetlejuice headed directly for one of the receptionists, but she dragged on his arm. "There's a queue, see?"

"Yeah, I saw it the last damn time I was here and I didn't bother with the fucker then, either."

"You can't _do_ that," she said, aghast.

"Sure I can – watch me." He started off again only for her to pull him back again.

"I mean you shouldn't!"

He sighed gustily, looking at the ceiling as if beseeching a higher power for patience he did not possess to deal with this trial. Then, tapping his foot as his gaze turned to her, he asked, "And WHY is that?"

"Because it's…." As she looked into his hot green eyes staring out of his cadaverous black eye sockets, the words 'not polite' died unspoken. "How would you like it if you'd been waiting a long time and someone cut in front of you?" Thus having spoken, she maneuvered them into last place in a line that went on for a mile.

The construction worker who was in front of them abruptly turned his head, revealing the caved in half of his skull, and she realized he'd been nervously eyeing them.

Beetlejuice loudly announced, "I don't wait behind anyone, no matter what they do." He sneered at the skittish glances aimed their way.

Then the construction worker stepped to the side of the roped in maze of a line and said gruffly, "You and the missus can go in front of me, Mr. Juice." If he could remove the pieces of his hard hat, she had a feeling he'd be holding them in the classic 'Ai, Senor, The Banditos Are Coming' pose. They had hardly passed him with a murmured thanks from Lydia when the next person in line, and Indian man in a turban with dark bruises on his face bowed them ahead of him with a strangely angled arm. Then the next and the next and the next, until they were strolling arm in arm down the line like it was the parted Red Sea. Behind them, a wave of tense whispering broke out.

Wide-eyed, she asked in an aside, "What did you _do_ the last time you were here?"

"I was applying for our marriage license, a' course." He smirked.

She blinked. "Do we need to renew that?" She hadn't realized that they'd needed one in the first place, but given the Neitherworld bureaucracy's penchant for paperwork, she probably should have expected it. Perhaps her time would have been better spent researching marriage arrangements instead of contract negotiations. She had skimmed that chapter in the Handbook, but clearly she'd missed important details while looking for mentions of the living marrying the dead.

"Nah, s'good for afterlife."

"Wait a minute – when did you have time for that?" She tightened her hand around his elbow as if he might run off and eyed him suspiciously. How long had he been scheming to trap her, specifically, in marriage?! His answer had the potential to change everything – if he'd fixated on her, it would make disentangling herself from this whole mess much more difficult. Entirely besides the vaguely flattering notion that she was the only one he'd ever proposed to, even if it was as unromantic as it gets without screechy, poorly-worded love songs.

"I _was_ in a big fucking hurry." He rubbed his moldy stubble musingly. He couldn't exactly tell her that he'd heard ol' Chucky-boy and that fashion disaster discussing the ritual he planned to perform when they were carrying the model downstairs, and that, figuring out that it was actually an exorcism, he'd sensed a prime set up and rushed off to prepare for their upcoming nuptials instead of trying to prevent it. Somehow, he didn't see her being swayed by the fact that there was really fuck all he could have done about it while two inches tall.

"Uh-huh. And when exactly were you in this hurry?"

"Have I told you that's one hell of a dress?" He wouldn't meet her eyes. Mostly because his eyes had gravitated to her bust-line.

She rolled her eyes. "No. You do realize that I'll be able to read the issue date when I sign the marriage license."

"Ya don't gotta sign it, I did it for ya."

"You FORGED my SIGNATURE?!" Stopping abruptly, she realized she was shouting when every eye in the place focused on them outright, forgoing the furtive staring.

The tall, ragged and blood-stained black robed form of a bystander piped up in a surprisingly squeaky voice. "Is that really very surprising? Considering…." He waved his scythe at Beetlejuice.

Snapping around, Lydia said, "And who asked you?"

"Yeah, can it!" Beetlejuice added, wiping imaginary sweat off his brow at the near miss. Go diversionary tactics! She'd have been mad about his power of attorney whenever she found out about it, anyway. She was such a control freak. Don't do this, don't do that…blah, blah, blah.

Lydia elbowed him. "You shut it!"

Sheepishly tugging his hood back, the red-haired, freckled teenager said, "Sorry."

Looking at the thirty-something woman in a fairy princess costume hovering over him, Lydia asked, "Aren't you a…little young to be getting married?" She added, 'to her,' in her head.

The woman laughed deprecatingly, her bloody ruin of a throat wobbling, and said, "I know I've only been dead for five years and Ritchie's been kicking around the Neitherworld since the fifties, but," here she took his hand and they shared a loving smile, "we really connect, you know?"

"We're real gone," Ritchie said. "We met at support group. Not everybody understands what it's like to be stuck in a dumb costume forever."

"You wouldn't believe how awful it is." She leaned forward confidingly, the skimpy cut of her costume revealing her generous assets. "I think I've heard every dirty princess pun in existence."

Lydia checked out of the corner of her eyes to see if Beetlejuice was looking – she was pleasantly surprised to find that he was pointedly yawning and checking his three watches. "I might have an inkling." She held up her veil and smiled cynically.

Beetlejuice cleared his throat in a long and drawn out hacking fashion. "Nice chattin' with ya stiffs, but me and Lyds gotta get goin'." The costumed couple laughed as if that was funny as he yanked her away.

Lydia could hear them talking to each other: 'What's a nice girl like that doing with him?' 'I dunno, she wasn't very nice to me at first.' 'That's 'cause you don't know when to keep your mouth shut.' 'And you do? Practically told her enough to write a book.' 'You helped, so don't give me that…'

And then the progressively audible voices were out of ear shot.

Beetlejuice was stalking past the multitude getting out of his way and she had to scramble to keep up. A little out of breath, she said, "Don't think I'm going to forget about you forging my signature."

He snorted. "Wouldn't dream of it. Not that it's, y'know, technic'ly, a forgery."

"Really. Do tell," she said dryly.

"Ya remember when ya made me the happiest dead guy in the world by agreeing ta marry me?" He clasped his hand over his heart, as if adoringly.

Rolling her eyes, she said, "Yeah, sure. What does that have to do with it?"

"Weeeeeeeelllllll…."

"Spit it out – no, don't, just SAY it already!"

"That's like an oral contract, heh, oral…that basic'ly gives me 'carte blanche,'" he made air quotes, "with stuff like signing for you on the marriage license."

She nodded, pursing her lips. Slowly, she said, "And answering for me during the ceremony, right?"

"Yeah, that." He scratched at a particularly virulent green patch of mold on his neck.

"I _had_ wondered about it." She resettled her arm around his and continued on down the line. Her eyelids were really getting heavy. It felt like the circles under her eyes were growing even as she spoke. "I didn't think it could actually count if I wasn't the one saying it."

His shoulders sort of un-hunched from their pre-emptive defensive posture and he gaped at her. "That's it? No elbows or glares or shoes thrown at me? Just…," he made his voice high and squeaky, "_I wondered about it_." Considering his previous performances, it was a rather poor imitation.

"Like you said at the time, it's not as if you wrote the rules." She fought back a yawn.

He opened and shut his mouth without saying anything, looking at her suspiciously. Maybe he shouldn't push his luck. He burst out with, "But I took advantage of an OBVIOUS loophole!"

She ignored his attempt to goad her, aware of the irritating fact that when she got sidetracked into getting angry at him, she never got any answers. Plenty of practice aiming, yes, but no answers. "Why's it written that way, anyway?"

Thrown off his game by her sudden temperance, he said, "So that both a' the schmucks makin' an agreement don't hafta clutter up the Neitherworld gettin' the paperwork done."

What he didn't bother to add, not being inclined to be particularly helpful at the best of times, was that it made things easier for ghosts bound to a particular haunting who couldn't come in person, or spirit as it were, which was an obscure bit of trivia she'd come across in her research into the Handbooks. The far-reaching applications were not immediately apparent in the wording, but if you picked apart the terms…yeah. It could apply to living people, or give you the power to carry out the agreement with just about anyone you made a deal with. The deplorable way he twisted it to his own use was actually sort of ingenious.

"Based on the assumption that your word IS your contract, huh?" she said musingly.

"Fuck if I care _why_." He snottily turned up his nose.

She sighed. So much for their grown-up, intelligent, rational exchange of information. At least he was keeping his various appendages to himself as they walked by the line. It would have been much faster to just go straight up to the receptionist, but by now they were smack dab in the middle of the byzantine structure of the roped off queue. All they could do was continue on with the assembled throng getting out of their way and pulling aside their neighbors as fast as they realized who was standing behind them with a grin on his face.

Although, with the sheer number of people in line, quite a few were beautiful women, or at least woman-shaped – the hawk wings and clawed feet of one clearly female creature with bones woven in her matted hair suggested harpy rather than ghost. The harpy was chatting over the rope to a different section of the queue with a shambling mess of limbs and heads, of which any of the five could be talking, sometimes all at once. It was wearing a mutilated business suit, with five ties, and carried a briefcase.

Lydia tried not to stare, fascinated, but Beetlejuice had no such compunctions. He did not even have the word 'compunction' in his vocabulary, never mind feeling the prickling of his conscience. Were his eyes straying to greener pastures already?

As soon as this mildly self-pitying thought crossed her mind, the comparison of cleavage to pasture bloomed into a full-blown mental image of her chest covered with grass like Beej's mold and tiny black sheep frolicking, which were much cuter than a certain garden snake which had recently inhabited her 'rolling hills.' This wrenched out tortured giggles which she tried in vain to smother. That was just as bad as moons!

"Whatcha laughin' at?" Beetlejuice asked, shaking her arm.

She looked up at him, laughter in her tired brown eyes. "Nothing, I guess."

He was quirking one wicked eyebrow bemusedly. "Anybody ever tell ya you're one crazy chick?" He smirked.

Her giggles caught in her throat. "Yeah," she croaked out. "Lots of times. I don't think…anybody ever said it to me quite like that, though."

Narrowing his eyes warily, he said, "Like what?"

Smiling shyly at him, she replied lightly, "Like it wasn't a bad thing. You know, you're pretty crazy yourself."

And now as they made their way to the front of the line like walking backwards in time, appearances getting progressively Victorian, she noticed him watching her in her peripheral vision, and it wasn't just her figure – although his gaze lingered on her breasts or waist or hips often enough.

Beetlejuice found himself bewildered and he didn't like it. One. Bit. And he couldn't even get mad about it, because she'd smiled at him. Nobody smiled at him, not like that – they bared their teeth or smirked or snarled. What business did she have smiling at him?! He _liked_ it, yeah, especially the pale little blush that he'd bet just about anything went _all_ the way down, but…he couldn't even figure out why callin' her crazy made her so goddamn happy. He was pretty sure if he said it again, with heartfelt conviction, she'd get pissed.

At the front of the line was a consumptive woman in a white nightgown billowing in an insubstantial wind. She barred their path, holding onto the collar of a miserable, well-built man in a priest's frock who was huddling at her feet. Burning with shadowy power, she shouted, "I have worked too hard and waited too long to give up my place in line! I was cheated in life, I WILL have my due in death!"

Beetlejuice, already annoyed, just mimed taking a deep breath and blowing out a candle. The ghostly woman's power snuffed out with a sizzle. He cackled.

"Ah…maybe I was being a bit hasty," she squeaked, looking terribly ordinary and timid with her nightgown and long brown hair hanging limply.

The priest lever himself to his feet like the cracking of a gargoyle and led her to the side with his hands on her shoulders. "Please forgive Gertrude – she's been a bit…carried away for the last century," he said in a hollow voice.

"NEXT!" the grumpy word resounded throughout the entire room for the first time since they'd gone in.

Lydia, looking at the woman who had been first in line and was now quietly weeping on the priest's shoulder, said, "Maybe…."

"Nah." Beetlejuice vetoed that idea immediately and dragged her forward. As they cleared the final roped in hurdle, he turned and made one of his nastier faces at the schmucks still in line. Much screaming and fainting ensued.

When Lydia turned to see what the hell was going on, he'd already put the medusa snakes away and his skin back on. Her eyes darted between the pandemonium that used to be a fairly orderly queue to his smugly satisfied smirk and decided she didn't want to know. With the way everybody'd been acting, he probably could've gotten the same reaction by shouting 'Boo!'

They went up to the free receptionist, who was glaring blindly ahead. "What do you want?" she said in a heavily accented voice. There was a name badge pinned to her draped Greek stola that read, 'Hi! My name is KARA, how may I help you?' Her immobile face read, 'You can go take a flying leap for all I care.'

Beetlejuice leaned against the counter, having taken this in at a glance, and said smarmily, "So, Kara-"

The receptionist interrupted. "It's Chara, _actually_."

"Whatever." He waved this little complication away. "We," he tucked Lydia into his side, "want to see a marriage counselor right away."

"You probably need it," Chara sneered, "but we are booked solid until nineteen hundred ninety five." Not once looking at anything, she jerkily tapped the appointment book in front of her. It flipped open to show pages filled in nearly black with names, dates, and times.

Out of the corner of his mouth, Beetlejuice whispered to Lydia, "What year's it now?"

"1992," Lydia said wide-eyed.

"Why don't we just blow this fucking popsicle stand and hunt down a preacher, whaddaya say?" He grinned, waiting for an answer, but if he had been alive, his heart would be beating madly right now – this was the crucial ploy, the pivotal moment. Would she give up her hare-brained scheme to curb his imaginary faults? He was counting on the fact that the newly dead clung to their old living concepts of time – it wasn't that long a wait, when ya had eternity.

"I dunno…." She had to admit, at least to herself, that not waiting for three years sounded like a great idea. If you ignored the consequences of getting married to randy poltergeist, that is. But she was pretty sure that she would not be able to string him along for _years_ waiting for an appointment. He was bound to notice that she had a pulse eventually, if the need to eat and sleep and breathe and shower didn't tip him off. Getting older would be a big clue. And then what?

Meanwhile, the other two receptionists had stopped working, much to the consternation of the people they were supposed to be hindering, and were looking at Chara with mingled admiration and apprehension. The nearest one sidled over and murmured, "You do know that's B, E, T, E, L, G, U, E, S, E, right?"

"No, do not tell me…." Chara's face, stuck in a permanent screwed-up grimace, twitched.

"He won't go away unless he gets what he wants!"

"Then we are doomed, for all the counselors are busy."

"What's he want to see a counselor for?"

"I did not ask."

The last receptionist leaned over to contribute. "Well…what about Heidi? She has a break coming up, and she's always been a sucker for the ones that look like her daughter."

"B-"

"Shh!" The two flanking receptionists shushed Chara with much agitated gesturing that she couldn't see anyway, being blind.

"HE does not look like…?"

"No, but his girl does."

"Poor thing."

"What, for looking like Heidi's kid?"

"No, for getting stuck with HIM!"

"Shh! What if he heard you?!"

"Get back to work, O Morai." Chara rapped on the counter with a series of spastic movements to get the unlucky couple's attention. "We can fit you in today at seven after three afternoon. Go to the thirteenth office when the time is right." The appointment book flipped open and their appointment bled onto the page from within, squeezing between two lines and into the margins. Jerkily, she pointed down a hallway, barely avoiding putting her finger up Lydia's nose.

"Wait, what? You can?!" Startled out of their staring contest of wills, Beetlejuice's jaw dropped open.

Seemingly paralyzed like an ancient Greek statue in her pose of sybil service, Chara said, "Go. Go now."

"Thank you very much!" Lydia said, drawing Beetlejuice away by the elbow from the counter where he was glaring murderously at Chara.

"Yeah. Thanks a lot," he muttered back over his shoulder. "I'm gonna remember this, y'know!"

The other two receptionists shared a look that was part sympathetic grimace and part 'damn, I'm glad that's not me.'


	5. Chapter 5: In Which Waiting is Boring

DISCLAIMER: I am a poor college student, who owns no copyrights, trademarks, or monopolies of any kind whatsoever, and doesn't get paid for writing.

A/N: I have been told that a short chapter is better than no chapter at all…this chapter is extremely short. It is finals time once again, though, and I thought I had better post what I got in case I am so depressed afterwards by massive tests/titanic projects that I can't write humor and I am tempted to write that magical ghost-killing rocks fall and everyone dies, the end.

To my reviewers:

badkidoh, roolsilver, Darbanville, TheBlackxRabbit – those of you who keep reviewing, your constancy is amazing! It's a thrill every time to know that someone keeps coming back for more (especially since, as I re-read what I've written, I wonder how anyone could have gotten through the utterly boring first chapter). I'm glad the OCs were entertaining! I've heard that people don't like them very much in fanfiction, so I tried to keep it down, but it was hard, because that's what I like about the DMV, too. And I really want to continue this story, because I haven't even gotten to the shocking, appalling plot twist that will probably make all my readers angry! But I just don't know if I can, so I totally understand the whole thing about the busy time of year.

PREVIOUSLY:

Chara rapped on the counter with a series of spastic movements to get the unlucky couple's attention. "We can fit you in today at seven after three afternoon. Go to the thirteenth office when the time is right." The appointment book flipped open and their appointment bled onto the page from within, squeezing between two lines and into the margins. Jerkily, she pointed down a hallway, barely avoiding putting her finger up Lydia's nose.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Five: In Which Waiting is Boring

A smiling Lydia, pulling a thin-lipped Beetlejuice along, wandered over to a waiting area with chairs and coffee tables overflowing with magazines. All of the chairs were taken, as well as the tables and make-shift stacks of magazines. Beetlejuice just sat on a convenient patch of air and put his feet up, crossing his arms and scowling.

This left her somewhat at loose ends. The Neitherworlders here were either of a sterner stock or he hadn't terrorized them before, and didn't seem inclined to do more than inch slightly away, hanging on to their seats with grim determination. So unless she felt like racing the other standees for a seat when someone left, she was out of luck. Judging by their expressions, they were ready and willing to lie, cheat, and sell their grandmas for one of the chairs. One in particular of indeterminate gender, wearing a flannel shirt with the arms ripped off and torn up jeans over full body fur, wrinkled a half-human, half-wolf nose and snarled. He or she was either a lumberjack or very butch. Lydia decided not to risk it.

Resigning herself to standing, she plucked a magazine off the floor. The cover was tattered, but from what she could piece together it was the December issue of Gothic Bride. Flipping through it, she found herself unable to concentrate. First, her feet started hurting. Her spiky blue high heels weren't exactly meant for running around in, and now that she wasn't being dragged around and pestered by a certain poltergeist the sole abuse was catching up to her. Then, the weight of her dress, which was not inconsiderable, started trying to drag her tired body down. She wondered how long they had been in the Neitherworld, for her to feel this worn out. Hours?

She snuck a look at Beetlejuice out of the corner of her eye. He was still pouting, but had added muttering darkly to himself to his repertoire.

"What time is it, anyway?" she asked him, pretending to read the magazine.

"How the hell should I know?"

"You've got three watches!"

"So?"

"So look at them!"

"You're so hot under the collar 'bout it, why don't YOU?"

Staring flatly at him, she got up on tiptoe and leaned in to check the watch faces exposed on his wrist by his crossed arms. One was all dirty broken glass, the digital one kept blinking 13:13, and the last one was just abominably slow. It ticked every three seconds, then four, then two, then six, and so on. "Why are you wearing _three_ busted watches?"

He glared at them. "What are ya talkin' about?" He tapped the irregular ticker. "This one's still goin'?"

"It's slow."

"How can ya tell?"

"By counting!"

"Hmph." He crossed his arms again, emphatically. "Whatever."

"I just wanted to know how long we had to wait."

He muttered something laced with profanity under his breath.

She sighed, and went back to her magazine, shifting from foot to foot. She could feel blisters forming by the minute, she really could. And she was just so tired…it was like something was sucking the life out of her. Finally, she asked him, "Is there room up there for two?"

He said flatly, "Ya'd hafta sit on my lap." That was a lie, and he fully expected her to refuse like a boring prude and demand that he juice up a chair or something, because that was just the way his day was shaping up. Just when he thought he was getting somewhere, some cosmic force, some narrative causality, some sorry-ass motherfucking bitch of fate, shut him down (that damn receptionist had better watch out! …What the hell was her name again? Karen?). Well, he wasn't falling for it anymore!

"Oh," she said, taken aback by the obligated way the blandishment was given, like he was reading from some script he didn't like but had to use. "If you don't want me to…"

She was saying yes…? "Hell yeah, I want ya to!" He scooped her up and deposited her crookedly in his lap, his hands taking up proprietary positions around her hips. "Make yourself right at home!" Even though he'd said it, he was stunned when she did just that.

Kicking off her torturous shoes, she leaned back into the comforting solidity of his chest. His ghostly chill was less chilly than the Neitherworld's malaise, and since everyone'd been staring anyway and he wasn't even trying to stick his hand down her bra, why not? Might as well give them something to stare at. She flipped open her magazine once again and was finally able to concentrate on the article about finding the perfect church graveyard.

Beetlejuice rested his chin in the crook of her half-frozen shoulder, unable to believe his luck but perfectly content to take advantage of it by looking straight down her shirt. Hell, she'd practically told him to – 'that's what they're for, looking at!' At least in public…in _private_, he'd bet she'd sing a different tune, and then he could fondle them to his heart's content (which was a lot of fondling). And while he was at it, he banished her spiky shoes. After all, some luck you had to make yourself.

They peaceably spent several minutes this way – him captivated by the rise and fall of twin perfection, her reading with an increasing sense of incredulity: 'How to protect guests from exorcism on consecrated ground,' 'How to make your own special cemetery in your backyard on a budget; tips on consecrating the ground for that spooky tingle,' "Making sure the headstones don't clash with your theme – 10 easy lessons in engraving.'

Then, just as he started wondering what that pulsing beat flowing through her neck under his chin was, Lydia turned to the fashion plates. Distracted by the interesting things her snickering was doing to her chest, he caught a glimpse of unimaginable, glossy-paged atrocities.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?" he said, grabbing the magazine and dragging it closer so he could examine it, his eyebrows somewhere in the region of his hairline.

She shoved the magazine out of her face. "I'm guessing a bridesmaid." It was then that she noticed something. "You have _another_ watch?"

Dropping half the magazine to let it dangle, he pushed his sleeve back farther to check his timepieces. "Ayep."

"Well, what's wrong with the fourth one?"

"Nothing! Look!"

So she did, and he was right. It was an old wind up pocket watch duct-taped to a wristband, merrily ticking away. "It's only 12:09? Great." She slumped bonelessly against him. "We've got a couple hours to kill. You don't have a deck of cards, do you?"

"Maaaaybe," he said, uncertain whether or not he wanted to fish out his nude-mermaid-backed deck. He didn't mind cheating, but she'd probably insist on a more traditional poker set-up, which meant not sitting in his lap so he couldn't see her cards, or even down her shirt. Talk about cruelty! Never mind that he was perfectly happy to show her his if she'd show him hers (and not just cards, heh). Not that the cards in his hand usually stayed the hand he was dealt.

"Or," she sat up straight and half turned to look at him, "we could go back to my…um, haunt for a while. I've got a lot of unpacking to do…" That is, if her stuff was still there and she hadn't been declared a missing person, because of the time difference between the two planes.

He blinked. Yeah. They could do that…nobody _had _to wait here, as long as they came back in time for their appointment – most of 'em did, though, just to make sure they didn't miss their time slot, because they didn't know how to or just weren't powerful enough to juice themselves where they wanted to go. He raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. And _if_ he _happened_ to be doing something to Lydia in her (private!) attic/closet box-filled room that made her forget all about even having an appointment…well, what could ya do?

She took his contemplative silence for a 'no' and tried to sweeten the pot. "We could order take-out!" Now that she'd been in the Neitherworld, she really wanted to get OUT (it was strange to find herself sympathizing with Beej's feelings on the matter), where she could get WARM. She'd started to notice her breath beginning to crystallize in the air. If it wasn't so damn cold, though, it'd be cool. That is, interesting. Full of curiosities and weird shit.

"You can talk over a phone line?" he asked, a little impressed. It was easier than making people see you (if they couldn't actually SEE that you were dead, they were less likely to go into denial and ignore you as being impossible), but still, not many ghosts managed it, and definitely not newly dead.

Shit! She'd forgotten about that. Think, think! "Nooo…but you can, right?" She smiled widely and hoped he bought it.

He smirked. "Damn straight! Ghost with the most here, babes! Let's get the hell outta Dodge!"

So they did.


	6. Ch6: Not All Her Base Are Belong To Him

DISCLAIMER REMIX: Right, I don't make any money from this, I do it for the lulz. I don't own them, I'm just playing with them for a while.

A/N: I give up. Srsly.

AliceWHatter, Hinata245, welcome to the fold! Darbanville, Heidi should be showing up in the next chapter or so ;D badkidoh, the big reveal is also scheduled to happen soon! (when and if the next chapter ever gets written) roolsilver, duct tape is like the force – there's a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together. TheBlackxRabbit, I hope your finals go well!

PREVIOUSLY:

"Or," she sat up straight and half turned to look at him, "we could go back to my…um, haunt for a while. I've got a lot of unpacking to do…"

She took his contemplative silence for a 'no' and tried to sweeten the pot. "We could order take-out!"

"You can talk over a phone line?" he asked, a little impressed.

Shit! She'd forgotten about that. Think, think! "Nooo…but you can, right?" She smiled widely and hoped he bought it.

He smirked. "Damn straight! Ghost with the most here, babes! Let's get the hell outta Dodge!"

So they did.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Six: In Which Not All Her Base Are Belong To Him, And Other Mixed Metaphors

Tossing the magazine on the werewolf's head and throwing Lydia over his shoulder, Beetlejuice kicked off and backstroked to the nearest door, a janitor's closet. Before she had time to protest the hurl-worthy indignity of being treated like a sack, he shoved the door inwards when it was clearly supposed to open outwards and then they were through and he was slamming shut the beige door of her beige dormitory.

The flood of un-air-conditioned August heat prickling over her frozen skin was an exquisite torture. She groaned and squeezed her eyes shut as he slid her off his shoulder, letting her body drag down his until her toes brushed the floor and their mouths were level. Without the heels, she was much shorter than him. Where they touched there was no pain, only the numbing chill.

"Alright, Lyds?" he rumbled.

"Yeah." Her head lolled back and she opened her eyes. "I'm great." She smiled punch-drunkenly as she started to shiver again – she hadn't realized when it had stopped, and what a bad sign that was, but now it was back and that meant she would be fine, right? A little longer, though, and he really would have a ghost fiancée stuck in a Halloween costume! She laughed at her own morbid humor, even though it wasn't funny. It was startling to know, deep in her iced over gut, that she had come so close to death and _hadn't really noticed_ until it was nearly too late. Would she have only felt that she was suddenly so much less tired, that the cold wasn't so terrible, when she died and took a step forward, leaving her body behind to fall to the floor? "Did I forget my shoes there?"

"Dunno," he said and shrugged, jostling her against his paunch. Her feet dangled helplessly off the ground, his arm firmly clasping her hips to his with an unreal strength, one hand splayed on her backside. "Ya don't wanna go back _now_, do ya?"

He moved in to kiss her, but she twisted to look around the room, thankfully still full of all her boxes. She said, "I suppose I can find them when we go back later." If she _could_ go back – that was doubtful at the moment.

His lips hit her jaw line instead of her mouth but he decided to go with it.

"Put me down already so I can find the take-out menus." She shoved weakly at his shoulders. She didn't actually think her legs would support her.

He mumbled around her earlobe, "Howzabout – no." If she thought she was going to wriggle out of this, after being such a fucking tease…she had another thing coming! But she could wriggle her sweet ass all she wanted.

A tendril of warmth uncurled in her beneath the breaking ice as he laid open-mouthed kisses on her neck. When he reached the high collar of her dress and moved away she made a little disappointed noise.

He bent her back, supporting her with a hand between her shoulder blades, and chuckled against her sternum. "Like that, do ya, babes?" His gruff voice vibrated deliciously through her chest.

"Hm…?" As he nuzzled into the cleavage exposed by her torn bodice she realized she was letting him take liberties she would have hit him for not even ten minutes before, and here she was clutching at his shoulders! And she didn't care, not as long as he fed the warmth pooling low in her stomach. A warmth that came with a little voice which said, 'You're not dying of ghostly plane hypothermia anymore! Might as well live a little, wink wink nudge nudge.' She didn't normally listen to that voice, but it seemed to have the right idea at the moment. He didn't have any body heat to share, but there were ways to raise your core temperature…it was for her own health and well-being.

He sat her down on a ledge of nothing, insinuating himself between her knees, the hand on her ass getting in one last squeeze before running down her thigh to start gathering up her skirt. Meanwhile his questing mouth had sought out a nipple and he curled his tongue around the rosy pebble and groaned, making her tremble. She really did have the most perfect breasts he'd ever seen; he'd almost swear they were warm and _alive _(which reminded him that he was vaguely pissed that she had tried to marry some other guy and gotten killed, but he'd get over it). Then he tugged with his teeth, only enough to make her breath hitch and her hips twitch.

He turned to the other breast to repeat the process, his enjoyment marred (only somewhat) by the fact that her skin had the chill of death on it, and not from his icy touch (if that Maitland bitch hadn't fed him to a sandworm, if he'd managed to finagle his way out of the waiting room early, if he had just BEEN THERE . . .). Okay, so he'd enjoy making time with a living Lydia, that didn't mean his dead Lydia was lacking – because she wasn't. Oh, no, he still wanted her a million ways from Sunday.

As he concentrated on giving her a hickey (lamenting the fact that it wouldn't last very long before the unblemished skin of her last living memory re-asserted itself), sliding his hand lower down her arching back, his fingers encountered a small, ragged indentation. As he absently fingered it, he realized it was the entrance wound to match the bloody splatter on her stomach. And it hit him again, viscerally, that she had been shot in the back while wearing her wedding dress. Lydia. Shot in back. Wedding dress. HIS fiancée. And that…_bothered_ him.

Her eyes fluttered open as he abruptly paused, but when she touched his face inquisitively he gave himself a shake and went back to work with a will, only to stop again a moment later. She groaned at losing the heating caress of his mouth. He suddenly straightened, dragging her upright as she stiffened her arm in surprise and grabbed onto the back of his neck. Quirking an eyebrow and trying not to pant, she asked, "What is it?"

"Who did it?" he demanded.

She frowned, narrowing her eyes. Trying to focus on what he was saying was surprisingly difficult. What the hell was he talking about? "Did what?" she finally asked.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, one hand still holding the edge of her skirt. "Shot you! Killed you! …Tried to marry you."

Her head rattling and the pleasant haze her thoughts had fallen into evaporated, she karate-chopped his elbows and broke his grip.

He let go of her skirt.

"I don't want to talk about it." She could tell him the back story she'd written for her costume, but it would require heavy modification to fit her life, and each detail (to get technical, each lie) which she told him would be one more thing to remember. It was difficult enough keeping ghost can and can not's straight. Also…she would feel bad about it. It wasn't her fault that he'd assumed she was dead, and she hadn't dispelled that particular delusion, but it wasn't quite the same thing as deliberately lying to him.

"But-!" He knew it was probably a painful subject, but he had to know!

"But nothing! Do you see these?" She cupped her own breasts dramatically.

His eyes zeroed in. "Yeah…what's your points – I mean, nipple – I mean point!"

"These will be going away and you won't see them again if you don't drop it!" Part of her, a very small part she reassured herself, was violently protesting the thought of never having that talented mouth finish what it started.

He covered her potent distraction with his hands so he couldn't see, only to realize that wasn't working out so well when he was unable to resist massaging them with his palms. Trying to ignore while at the same time savoring the sensation, he fixed her with a glare. What wasn't she telling him? Why didn't she want to talk about it? A lot of ghosts wouldn't shut up about how they died! "Why are you protecting him? Do you love him?!"

She gaped at Beetlejuice. Honestly, what a time for his one-track mind to skip onto anything but lechery! _Where_ did he come up with this stuff?! Hadn't he ever heard that to assume makes an ass out of 'u,' never mind me?

Fuck. She did, didn't she? He couldn't breathe. He didn't need to breathe, but he usually liked to, in order to smoke or talk or whatever, but he couldn't breathe. He'd find the asshole and get rid of 'em. Permanently. He wasn't a bio-exorcist for nothing.

"Him WHO?" Grabbing Beetlejuice by the shoulders, she tried to shake him, but he was rigidly locked in place.

And suddenly the world was the right way up again and the mysterious constriction around his non-corporeal lungs was gone. Because she obviously didn't love someone else, she couldn't, not with the way she was carrying on. What the hell was wrong with him, cornering the hottest bird he'd ever laid eyes on and then wasting time _talking_?

He kissed her madly, but she refused to participate no matter how his tongue cajoled hers. But she couldn't budge his crushing embrace as she shoved and struggled. She couldn't even knee him like this. That stupid little voice had terrible ideas. If she'd been in her right mind she would never have encouraged him. She didn't want to marry him! She didn't want anything to do with him! No matter how good he was at kissing. He could just run off with one of those bimbos he'd been 'practicing' with, for all she cared. They could have his moldy ass.

But as his mold tickled her cheek and his chapped lips plied her own, the Everclear taste of him (like nothing so much as spirits that burned enough to freeze) fell on the banked warmth in her belly and ignited, like Everclear does. That stuff's dangerous, you know.

It was easy, far too easy to let him have what he wanted, when being wanted (and she could tell he wanted it so bad) was going straight to her head. This was not casual, 'oh look she has boobs' groping, but a serious study of what made her gasp or tilt her hips or pull his tangled hair. She'd spent her most hormonal teenage years being shunned by boys for being a dark, freaky witch-lookalike, and here was a man who wasn't frightened of that at all. He seemed to like it. For the moment, the fact that he'd probably make out with a real witch, with warts and twenty cats, slipped from her mind.

Then his zealous hands were fondling her knees and he was kneeling before her with her massive skirt bundled out of the way and when had that happened? He was staring at the scrap of white fabric that no one was ever meant to see with something like fanaticism in his flashing green eyes, licking his lips. She snapped her legs shut, catching his nose as he leaned in.

"Goddammit!" He rubbed the injury with a surly indignation at being so, so close…and having her clam up! It was enough to make him tear his hair out!

That was too much! Too far, too fast, what was she thinking?! She pulled her bra back into place, straightening the layers of her dress in an effort to compose herself, looking anywhere but at him.

He let his hands slide down her smooth legs, shaking with the effort of keeping his touch light and unthreatening, and not prying her thighs open and kissing her until she gave in. Making her resent him would hardly get him any in the long run. She didn't kick him off like he feared she would, although her foot twitched as he ran his thumb over her instep. His hand encircled her entire ankle easily – she was small and fragile compared to him. She was just being shy and virginal rather than trying to drive him over the edge, 'round the bend or _worse_. Although how anyone could resist his good looks was a mystery…

Somewhat surprised to find out that she was sitting in midair (He was such a liar! Have to sit on his lap, did she?), nevertheless she managed to scoot off the invisible ledge and drop to the floor, dislodging his hands from her ticklish feet.

He let her go, plotting and scheming at sweet talking and offers of back rubs to get her to loosen up. Maybe large amounts of alcohol. He rubbed a hand down his face, stretching out his jaw. He cursed himself for giving her any time at all to think, to decide so far and no further. He damned the overwhelming desire to not only touch but see and smell and taste her all over that left her mouth unoccupied and able to say no…not that she _actually did_. Hm. But the worst part, the absolute kicker, was that now he'd caught a glimpse, he wanted it all so much more! If his balls got any bluer, he…well, he didn't know what would happen, but it was damned uncomfortable!

Going briskly to the desk, she dug around in the top drawer where she'd stuck all the paperwork involved in occupying a dorm, like the room inspection checklist and a packet of rules an inch thick. They'd also given her take-out menus, as if she couldn't be a college student without the number of the local pizza joint. She could feel his gaze like tar pouring over her back and it made her squirmingly uncomfortable.

At last she found what she was looking for and turned around, holding up the assortment of pamphlets as a makeshift shield. He was still kneeling there where she'd left him, not touching the ground, and um…she glossed over a certain portion of his anatomy even though it was hard – difficult! to ignore. And she was looking at him with newly opened eyes. She saw the pallid translucency of his skin and the dirt encrusting his uncut fingernails, his unshaven dishabille and the mold, the way he could probably stand to lose a few pounds but the fact that he never, ever would because he was DEAD. How sunken in and dark his eyes were when at the same time they glowed acid green.

This – this is what she had allowed to touch her. Not really what you'd call a man at all, anymore – a ghost, a poltergeist. He wasn't nice, and he wasn't clean cut, and her parents (all five of them) would never approve. Somehow, that made it all the more satisfying – she'd have to search far and wide to find another guy that upset everybody that much, and if she was going to do this rebellion thing (if he was going to stick around, and it seemed like…maybe he would), she might as well do it right.

She gestured with the left hand, fanning out the stack of coupons and glossy ads. "Pizza, pizza, pizza, pizza," she ticked off the options, "or Italian?" She gestured with the single folded piece of paper in her right hand.

"Lyyyyydiaaaaa…" he crooned, and it was a truly terrible thing to hear. "Come over here."

"None of those?" she said lightly. She thought there was another…oh, right! She'd left it taped to the door, intending to bring it in later. Now was later. Taking the long way around, detouring around piles of boxes and ignoring his irritated snort, she unlocked the door and pulled it open far enough to grab the menu.

The girls across the hallway were still moving in. Her hand stilled, grabbing onto the painted metal of the door. They had just started moving in when she had finished bringing up all her stuff. Holy shit! They couldn't have been in the Neitherworld for more than an hour! (Somehow, her godparents had gotten it all wrong – they must have actually been waiting for three whole months in that room instead of what seemed like forever but was probably a day or two.)

The redhead noticed she was gawking and spared her a harassed wave. Lydia pasted a smile on her face and waved back mechanically.

Snatching down the take out menu, she pushed the door closed, locked it again, and sank back against it. Her mind was racing a million miles a minute. Which may be why it seemed like she didn't notice Beetlejuice sneaking up behind her, but as he moved in for the kill, she shoved the folded paper up between them, blocking his lip access. "Chinese?"

"Fine!" He threw up his arms and rolled his eyes. "That's fucking great! I like egg rolls, dammit!"

Through half-mast eyelashes she considered him. Her toes were still kind of cold. And if he hadn't noticed her heartbeat pounding practically right under his ear…. "'Allow 45 minutes for delivery,'" she read off the back of the menu. "I wonder what we could possibly do to pass the time?"

He paused. Blinked. "Got a phone around here, babes?" He leered at her from where he was suddenly lounging against the door next to her.

The hand set was duly extracted from the depths of a cardboard box and plugged in, her new address looked up –

"Ya don't even know your own damn address?"

"Oh, shut up. I was in the middle of moving in, as you can see."

"So…this all your stuff?"

– Beetlejuice prevented from dumping everything on the floor, but not before he found the contents of her underwear drawer –

"What couldn't ya've been wearing _this_?"

"It's black!"

"So?"

"It would show through!"

"So?"

– the actual order haggled over –

"You can't get Szechuan Chicken, I'm getting Szechuan Chicken!"

"We can both get Szechuan Chicken!"

"How will we tell whose is whose?!"

"The one you're holding in your hand is yours!"

– and the call made.

He slammed the phone back in its cradle and turned to her expectantly. Before he could say anything or arrange things to his liking (which wouldn't necessarily include her liking), she tripped him over the room's only chair and plunked herself on his lap when he fell into the seat, careful to avoid his not-so-little problem. "I just have this one rule…" she said.

A silly grin overtaking his shock, he nodded and said, "Yeah!" without really listening.

"Nothing below the waist." She redirected his grasping hands, aimed towards the horizontal tango, to positions more suitable to a waltz.

"Wait, what?! Come on!"

"What was that? You'd rather watch me unpack?"

"…Is this rule, by any chance, gravity-oriented?"

"NO. It is me-oriented. You can't flip me upside down and claim that that's not below the waist anymore."

"Dammit!"


	7. Chapter 7: They Make It

A/N: This story isn't abandoned, half of this chapter has actually been written for…over a year? But anyway if anyone still cares here is another chapter! Totally un-betaed, I reserve the right to update with a fixed version and if you notice any mis-spellings or stuff that doesn't make sense, please tell me! Also, dun dun DUN, one big truth about Heidi is at the end, at LONG last you can know part of what I know, just don't skip to the end to find out because you will be disappointed. Ok, that's enough author note, I love reviewers, go read the story!

PREVIOUSLY:

Chara rapped on the counter with a series of spastic movements to get the unlucky couple's attention. "We can fit you in today at seven after three afternoon. Go to the thirteenth office when the time is right." The appointment book flipped open and their appointment bled onto the page from within, squeezing between two lines and into the margins. Jerkily, she pointed down a hallway, barely avoiding putting her finger up Lydia's nose.

-SCENE BREAK-

"Chinese?"

"Fine!" He threw up his arms and rolled his eyes. "That's fucking great! I like egg rolls, dammit!"

Through half-mast eyelashes she considered him. Her toes were still kind of cold. And if he hadn't noticed her heartbeat pounding practically right under his ear…. "'Allow 45 minutes for delivery,'" she read off the back of the menu. "I wonder what we could possibly do to pass the time?"

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Seven: In Which An Appointment Is Reached On Time

"Yes!" Lydia shouted. "Alright!"

Smirking victoriously, Beetlejuice grabbed her ass and crowed, "I knew you'd see reason!"

Not surprisingly, her rule of 'Nothing Below the Waist' was a bone of contention between them that he was worrying at like a hound dog. Mere begging and pleading had not swayed her, and his puppy dog eyes made her go 'Ew!' So he'd resorted to a tactic near and dear to his heart – waiting until she was preoccupied and half-naked to ask. But she was too canny for that. 'Do you like this?' 'Yeah.' 'Like it like that?' 'Mmhm.' 'Like for me to go down on you?' '…No!' However, negotiation had worked. Or, as Lydia would put it, whining so much she couldn't take it anymore, especially since it took his mouth away from other, more pleasant, activities.

So when he'd said, 'Can't I just, y'know, touch your legs a little? Gimme a fucking break, here!' she jumped at the chance to try to mollify him without sacrificing the spirit of the rule, which was no actual sex of any kind.

At the feel of his hands on her ass her eyes popped open and she sat up a little from where she had been languidly floating half under him, the chair having been abandoned about five seconds after they started making out. "That is not my legs."

"Says who?" he retorted brilliantly.

"Me!"

He moved his hands three inches lower. "What about here?"

She supposed that was about a third leg, but before she could answer there was a loud honk from outside. "That's probably the delivery guy."

"I'll get it!" He leapt to his feet and started to sink through the floor, leaving her to fall on her rear.

She reached out and grabbed at his arm – her hand went straight through, but there was _something_ there, like an itch in her brain, that she managed to latch onto to haul him back up. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He stared at her blankly.

"The money?"

"Oh, yeah, right! The money. 'Cause the dead are so well known for paying their bills." He rolled his eyes.

"Stuff a sock in the sarcasm and just take it, ok?" Scooping up the pile of cash near the phone, set out for just this purpose, she took his hand and shoved it in before pushing him through the floor.

He groaned and started picking bills out of his palm as he drifted down through the building, making several people shiver and shorting out a refrigerator he passed through. "Damn pushy broad…"

Lydia waited a second to make sure he was gone and then made a frantic dash to the bathroom down the hall, ignoring the strange looks her dress got. The worst thing about pretending to be a ghost, she thought as she washed her hands, was that there was no polite way to excuse yourself for a moment alone. What was she supposed to say, I need to haunt people for a bit? He'd probably offer to help, choosing precisely the wrong time to be chivalrous, or at least leaping at the opportunity to spread chaos.

Relieved as she was to find that he was not back yet on her return to her dorm, she also worried about what was taking him so long.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice had reached street level and snuck up to the delivery boy's car. He had invisibly spirited all the bags of Chinese from the back seat of the fancy drop-top with the triangular plastic sign stuck on top and was headed back with the takeout bobbing along behind him like ducks when a thought occurred to him. What Lyds, didn't know, couldn't come back to bite him in the ass. And _he_ wasn't ever going to tell her.

A snaggle-toothed grin stretching his face, he turned back to the mohawked delivery boy, who was tapping his foot along to his walkman and snapping his gum as he checked his watch.

Up in the dorm Lydia was taking the opportunity to change into the most hideous pair of granny panties she owned in the hope that they might, if not turn off, then dial down a certain someone's libido. Certainly they would give Lydia the fortitude to keep saying no – no way was she letting anyone ever see her in these! She was convinced they made her practically immortal, because she refused to be caught dead in them. She'd got them half on when she heard the girlish shrieking and the insistent honk of a car alarm, but she resisted going to look as she struggled to get the horrifying support underwear the rest of the way on and her dress adjusted before Beej floated through the wall.

He flung out his arms, shouting, "Hi honey, I'm hoooooome! And I brought dinner!" The bags of takeout floated in and dropped to the floor.

She blinked and sighed. "You – that's way more than we ordered. What the hell are we supposed to do with it all?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, ya see, it's like this-"

"No. I really don't want to know. Either your excuses or what actually happened. I just don't want to know." She sat down and grabbed a bag. "Let's just eat, ok?"

He blinked. "Hell, that's fine with me." Shrugging, he sat down too, although he missed the floor by a few inches. "Where's the Szechuan Chicken?"

This seemingly innocent question was, in fact, the start of a half hour long search through the take-out bags, which were only labeled with the order numbers, which were apparently assigned according to some arcane technique known only to Chinese restaurant employees. Perhaps they consulted fortune cookies, which would explain both the series of random numbers in two digit clusters and the one that said only, 'Beware of shrimp today,' which had made Beetlejuice snicker rather loudly.

There was much taste-testing and questions requiring deep thought, such as, "This is Mu Shu, alright, but Mu Shu what?" and, "If you eat two fortune cookies, and they had conflicting predictions, which one comes true? Or, if they're totally unrelated, if you eat the cookies at the same time, do both of the predictions come true at the same time?" By the time they actually found their own order, they were reluctant to actually eat it.

Lydia lazily opened the very last brown paper bag and peeked inside. Three white cartons, wax paper thing of eggrolls. "Here, Beej, I'm pretty sure this is the double Szechuan Chicken." She took out one of the cartons oozing brownish sauce and thrust it in his general direction, letting herself fall flat to the floor where she proceeded to hug her stomach with her other arm. "Oof."

"Don't ya want it? You're the one that ordered it." Beetlejuice didn't even look over as he waved it back at her before patting his paunch contentedly, laying prostrate in the air.

"I seriously couldn't eat another bite. I'm stuffed. And you ordered it too."

A mischievous glint sparked up in his eyes as he turned toward her. "Stuffed, huh? I—"

"Don't even dare to finish that sentence. Seriously. I'm not so full that I won't get up and hit you. Or just throw something at you." She groaned.

"Hey, is that a cockroach?" he said brightly.

"Change the subject why don't you…." She rolled her eyes at his lame attempt at a distraction, then rolled her head to the side to look at where he was pointing. She shrieked at the huge beetle moseying across the beige carpet barely a foot away from her face and scuttled backwards into Beetlejuice, was now avidly leaning forward. "It's a cockroach!" she whispered very forcefully, having modulated her tone by an extreme force of will. Bringing the neighbors running because of a bug was silly. She knew that keeping any building pest-free was an iffy prospect, but did her dorm really have to be infested with…with…! She didn't give a damn about a lot of different insects, ladybugs and moths were alright in her book and crickets and flies were mostly annoying because of the noise, but cockroaches were just dirty and gross.

Time seemed to stretch like taffy as she watched in gaping horror as his molding hand reached out past her, grabbed the cockroach up between his long, yellow fingernails and brought it, as she leaned out of the way and her head swiveled to watch like something out of the exorcist, up to his mouth! Where he proceeded to eat it! In two chomping bites, with all signs of evident enjoyment. He even licked his fingers afterwards and let out a belch.

She was staring, and she knew she was staring, but she couldn't stop. She couldn't even make herself blink, her eyes were fixated on his mouth. His dirty, dirty mouth. That had done things to her. And had just eaten a bug! She wondered why she was so surprised by that, given that she'd seen him do it before, but the memory of him chomping on the aphids crawling around on the model seemed to have been one she'd willfully suppressed. Otherwise she never would have let him stick his tongue _there_! A shudder worked its way down her spine, from the base of her neck to her tailbone.

"Whazza matter, honey?" he said, perfectly obliviously.

"I thought you were full," Lydia managed to say.

"Aw, I'm sorry, did you want some?" he sing-songed and playfully went for a kiss.

She recoiled desperately, throwing out, "Hey, what's the time? Don't we have somewhere to be?"

Beetlejuice thankfully paused in his efforts to plant one on her to nonchalantly check his timepieces and pronounce, without even a twitch, "We got all the time in the world, babes."

"Lemme see that," she said and reached for his arm.

He tried to twist away while at the same time entangle her in his arms, which resulted in him tying himself up in knots and made it easy for her to get the arm in a lock and pull up his sleeve.

"Holy -! It's three o'clock already. Beej, we're gonna be late!" She dragged him up, marched him over to the door and demanded, "Do that portal thing you do."

As she looked at him expectantly he slowly untangled himself and drawled, "Maybe I will, maybe I won't."

"Beej!" She crossed her arms. "We have an appointment!"

He somehow insinuated his arms through hers so that they were holding onto each other and gave her the ol' bedroom eyes trick, the dark pits under his brows smoldering with green fire. "We don't need no counselor to get busy, baby-doll." But she managed to block the incoming kiss with her hand sprawled over his face and shoving his chin back. He scowled.

"Don't you want to marry me?" she said, making her eyes wide and pouting at him. Time was of the essence. Normal tactics wouldn't cut it.

He mumbled, "Sure," through lips smushed up against her palm. "But we can just see a preacher—"

"Do you want to touch my ass?" she interrupted.

He nodded as far as her grip on his face allowed.

"Then get us to the marriage counselor on time!"

-SCENE BREAK-

Lydia fussed with her tousled hair and dress and tried to calm her breathing before she opened the prosaic door with frosted glass window and brass name tag inscribed with 'Heidi, Counselor Senior Rank, Special Circumstances, Department of Marital Relations.' She didn't remember precisely how they had gotten here in nearly the blink of an eye, but she didn't think she wanted to, either. Beetlejuice was sulking somewhat off to her left and had his hand on her backside, but she had promised after all. She would just have to block sight of his arm with her body.

Taking one last deep breath, she knocked and swung open the door.

The lady at the desk looked up irritably and snapped, "What is it? I'm on my…Lydia? Is that you?" She stood up, and moved towards them, holding out her arms and smiling. "Lydia!"

Lydia's jaw dropped and Beej's hand on her ass actually froze in place. "G-grandma?"


	8. Chapter 8: Talk therapy?

A/N: I moved cross-country and started grad school. I am utterly crazy to have been working on this instead of studying for finals and writing several massive papers due shortly. So, for those of you who really wanted a new chapter, please keep that in mind and feel special instead of hating me because this chapter was not easy to write and I'm not even sure I like it.

PREVIOUSLY:

Lydia fussed with her tousled hair and dress and tried to calm her breathing before she opened the prosaic door with frosted glass window and brass name tag inscribed with 'Heidi, Counselor Senior Rank, Special Circumstances, Department of Marital Relations.' She didn't remember precisely how they had gotten here in nearly the blink of an eye, but she didn't think she wanted to, either. Beetlejuice was sulking somewhat off to her left and had his hand on her backside, but she had promised after all. She would just have to block sight of his arm with her body.

Taking one last deep breath, she knocked and swung open the door.

The lady at the desk looked up irritably and snapped, "What is it? I'm on my…Lydia? Is that you?" She stood up, and moved towards them, holding out her arms and smiling. "Lydia!"

Lydia's jaw dropped and Beej's hand on her ass actually froze in place. "G-grandma?"

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Eight:

Bewildered, Lydia accepted a hug from her grandmother, a statuesque woman in a retro pencil skirt and sweater set with very long black hair only a little streaked with grey. Her grandmother that she would have sworn was alive this morning! Well, it wasn't like they kept in contact, really, but she'd gotten a birthday card this year like usual. It had had a white cake with black candles on the front, and a pop up skeleton inside that danced when you flapped the card, with a banner blaring 'Happy Death-Day!' with 'death' crossed out and 'birth' scribbled in above. She'd quite enjoyed it, and the twenty five dollar check folded into an accordion and taped to the skeleton's hands. Grandma's cards always were a little…strange…. Someone would have told Lydia if she'd died, certainly? Dad, after the estrangement from his first wife, had avoided his first mother-in-law rather assiduously, but he still would have attended her funeral, right? She couldn't nag him if she was dead.

Just as they gave each other a squeeze (the universal signal that the hug should end), Beetlejuice clamped them both together again, shouting, "Group hug!" Then he pried Lydia away from where she'd gotten stuck on her grandmother's dangly bat earrings, said, "Scuze us for a minute," and herded her back out into the hallway.

"You didn't tell me your granny is Cyanide Heidi!" he hissed at her.

"Well, you never asked, either. …Cyanide?"

"The most feared necromancer for the last hundred and fifty years!"

Lydia peered around him into the office. "She's knitting a fuzzy orange jack-o-lantern sweater." She sidestepped him to go back into the office. She'd always felt that her (biological) parents were hiding something about her grandmother, and she was going to find out what.

He blocked her. "She could knit _you_ into a sweater!"

"She let me call her 'Gamma Nighty' until I was six. I think we'll be safe." Lydia ducked under his arm and inside before he could stop her.

"Argh!" Beetlejuice slapped his hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. He debated with himself for a moment about just making tracks and ditching Lyds. It was, after all, her granny, she'd be fine, never mind that those types tended to keep their deceased loved ones trapped in urns on the mantel. Rumor had it that Cyanide Heidi had even managed to take down one of the Royal family, for a minute or two. And Lyds – soft Lydia, sweet Lydia, Lydia of the fantastic ass – seemed to have no fuckin' clue. He had _plans_ for that ass that he wasn't gonna let no jumped up bone-conjuror interfere in! With a grunt of frustration he followed her in.

"It's so nice of you to drop by," the dangerous necromancer was saying as she and Lydia settled into the chairs sitting in front of the desk. Two were against one wall, and one sat against the other. The office was so cramped that their knees bumped together when they sat, and the desk had been crumpled a little to get it to fit in. "And with your first minion!" she exclaimed, "I'm-"

Lydia tried to interject. "He's not-"

Heidi, however, was on a roll. "-so proud of you, I was worried that you'd follow in your mother's footsteps. She always said she just wanted to be normal, the poor dear, but what is normal anyway?"

Beetlejuice sat down, bumping into everyone's knees, and immediately started tapping his fingers uneasily against his thighs. With some minor glee he took up as much space as possible, crowding Lydia into the desk.

Heidi winked at Lydia and continued, barely pausing for breath. "And what a catch! I'm sure I never had a poltergeist when I was just starting out as a young girl. I want to hear all about it!"

Lydia waited for a moment to be sure that she was finished and it was safe to talk. "Actually, he's not my minion."

Beetlejuice snorted. Like he would ever swan around catering to the whim of some slip of a girl, let a dame put a leash on him and order him to come to heel like a damn dog! There was a perfectly good explanation for any evidence to the contrary that might happen to involve his fiancée, right?

"This is Bee…B.J., my fiancé." She took his hand and gave a valiant attempt at a smile. "Right…honey?" She looked at him expectantly.

Then she jostled his arm. "Huh?" He snapped out of his increasingly dark musings.

"I said, right, honey?"

"Oh. Yeah. Right."

"How romantic!" Heidi said. "I can just see how it must have happened. Of course, you set out to Bind something small for your first try, maybe a twice-dead cat, and you summoned him by accident – don't worry, it takes practice to aim summoning portals with any accuracy, you should hear about the thing your cousin Permelia dragged out of the pits because she mumbled a bit – but by the time you realized it he'd overpowered you. Looking deep into your eyes, he realized that he could never harm such a beautiful lady! So he let you go. But he couldn't stop thinking about you once you banished him, and snuck back across to see you. That's how you met, isn't it? I just know it is!"

Lydia blinked. "Um, not…exactly, Grandma."

Heidi's eerily ageless face fell, and Lydia squirmed a bit at the loss of that dreamy expression. "But…kind of?" she finally said, and it wasn't precisely a lie.

"Tell me all about it!" Heidi said, perking up again.

"Well!" Beetlejuice said with exaggerated relish, leaning forward conspiratorially. Then he launched into a protracted rendition of his stint of bio-exorcism in Winter River, which painted the Maitlands as sneering villains who had tricked him into doing their dirty work, scaring off the living occupants of the house. In this fable Lydia wore short skirts a lot and fell madly in love with the handsome poltergeist that tried to scare her off but couldn't. She gladly agreed to marry him, leading to Barbara's treachery when she crashed their beautiful wedding. He went into loving detail about the dress he'd made for her and the tux he'd worn, and the fact that her parents were going to be their witnesses and could hardly drag themselves away.

The real Lydia wanted to groan and roll her eyes and say that's not how it happened, but how could she disappoint her grandma with the sordid truth?

He concluded the fanciful tale with, "And then I got eaten by a sandworm."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Heidi.

"Oh yes!" chortled Beetlejuice, delighting in a receptive audience.

"But how did you survive?"

"Well," he prevaricated, tugging at his open collar as if it was suddenly too tight. "The usual, y'know, didn't actually get a good grip on me, the ole one two."

"Is that so?" Heidi said lightly and smiled, leaning back in her seat. "Now, B.J., was it?"

"Yeah, sure, Grams. Can I call you Grams?"

"Of course, Betelgeuse."

Something in the way she said his name, a half-heard echo that prickled on the back of Lydia's neck, made her absolutely sure that her grandmother was not using the phonetic epithet 'beetle-juice,' although the syllables were similar. Should have been identical, but somehow they weren't.

Beetlejuice jumped to his feet, sputtering.

"Sit down," Heidi said in that same unsettling voice that resonated in ways that you didn't hear with your ears.

He sat.

"Shut up," Heidi said.

His mouth slammed shut.

"Now, Lydia," Heidi said, once again all pleasant affability. "Your father called me up four years ago in hysterics, demanding to know if I was the kind of witch who could exorcise a house, so I know all about that side of the story. B.J. has just enlightened me as to his feelings on the matter. Why don't you tell me the truth?"

"All about it?" Lydia slumped down in the chair.

Heidi nodded. "Allllllll about it."

So Lydia began her own story. She started with the Maitlands – how they had lived, and how they had died, and how they had returned to what was left of their lives afterward. Namely, their house.

Beside her Beetlejuice began to peel slivers of wood off the armrests where his arms seemed to be stuck down, the scritch-scratch adding to the harsh grinding noise that made Lydia's own teeth wince in sympathy.

Next Lydia outlined how she, Dad, and Delia had moved in, and attempted to explain Delia, or failing that, at least how she had completely remodeled the house, or failing that because sometimes words just weren't enough, simply explain how angry and upset the Maitlands had been.

On and on the details poured out from the recesses of her mind where she had crammed them down, never talked about, the whole episode deliberately ignored even after the Maitlands became an accepted part of the family. Other things, too, came out – how much she had resented Delia, how disappointed and angry she had been at her father, how desperately unhappy she had been. Things that Lydia had never planned to discuss with anyone. Heidi's silence seemed to actively draw the words out. Some kind of counseling trick?

Increasingly uneasy, Lydia forced herself to continue, realizing that this was likely the only chance she would ever have to tell Beetlejuice why she'd let him get eaten by a sandworm when he could do nothing but sit and listen to her. So now, speaking as much to him as to her grandmother, she went deeper. Into how she had felt no choice but to agree to any bargain with the Maitlands _disintegrating_ before her eyes. How he had both frightened and exhilarated her with the carnival routine that punted Maxie Dean and his utterly obnoxious wife out of the house. The easy, careless way he saved her friends, who had become more like parents to her than her own flesh and blood.

She highlighted in intricate and graphic terms how the exhilaration had fled and left only terror in its wake as he proceeded to treat her with the same cavalier disregard he'd shown tossing people through the roof headfirst. She had thought, then, that the Deans were dead, and her family was next. She admitted to panicking, not knowing what he would do when he was truly free, how he would treat her in the face of what he had already done, if she would live out the night.

The office felt much too quiet when she was done. Beetlejuice sat corpse-still, not breathing, staring intently at her with his inhuman eyes glowing like opaque jade lamps.

"Oh, honey," Heidi broke the effect of the silence. "If you were the powerless girl they let you grow up believing you were, you weren't even close to being afraid enough of what he could do." She pulled her granddaughter into her arms for a quick hug and then held Lydia out, hands on her shoulders. "However, you've got necromancy in your blood. And I want you to understand the effect that had on the situation. Of course the Maitlands, righteously angry ghosts, would instead become what you most needed them to be – surrogate parents. Of course a powerful, malevolent spirit like B.J. would fixate on you – dark power knows itself."

"What are you saying?" Lydia asked, trying and failing to move away. The grip on her shoulders was not tight and could have been reassuring, but was completely immovable. "That it's my fault he demanded I marry him?"

"It's not something you could control without having been taught, so no, not your fault." With a slight shake, having emphasized the point she wanted to make, Heidi let go and sat back. "Look on the bright side! You've managed to completely enthrall him now."

Stunned, Lydia's eyes swiveled without any conscious thought towards the poltergeist sitting so unnaturally still beside her. His stare had not wavered one iota. She hadn't thought he was capable of being still that long.

A knock on the door presaged it creaking open. Someone was saying, "Hello? We're here for our appointment…?"

Heidi said, "Can't you see I've got company?" and went out in the corridor to deal with the newly arrived couple. From the muffled sounds that made it through the door, there was an explosive argument as she tried to shoo them away they battled desperately to avoid getting stuck in line for another century. Someone's ancestors were compared to geraniums.

Lydia could only hear Beetlejuice's rough voice growling, "So you think you've got me under thrall?"


	9. Chapter 9: The End of an Appointment

A/N: Hey, hey, everybody – look a new chapter! Sort of anyway? It's kind of short and stuff, but something is better than nothing? This story has recently gotten some really lovely reviews, so much so that I've been waffling about whether or not to post this for days, because it's awfully hard for me as an author to say, 'yes, this chapter was great and no one will hate it for reasons.' I am a crazy person intimidated by my own press. But I got this much written and it seemed a shame not to share, even if some of my kind readers will want to throw shoes at my head afterwards…

PREVIOUSLY:

A knock on the door presaged it creaking open. Someone was saying, "Hello? We're here for our appointment…?"

Heidi said, "Can't you see I've got company?" and went out in the corridor to deal with the newly arrived couple. From the muffled sounds that made it through the door, there was an explosive argument as she tried to shoo them away and they battled desperately to avoid getting stuck in line for another century. Someone's ancestors were compared to geraniums.

Lydia could only hear Beetlejuice's rough voice growling, "So you think you've got me under thrall?"

AND NOW ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Nine:

Forcefully peeling her eyes away from Beetlejuice's piercing stare, Lydia stumbled to her feet. She had to catch her balance leaning against the wall as the building shook, smoke billowing under the door and shrieks filling the hallway outside as the argument over appointment times escalated. Normally she would have shrugged off the disorientation easily, but she already felt like the floor of reality had been yanked out from under her feet. She wanted to get away – knew that she couldn't outrun the truth.

"Are you?" she burst out, slumped against the wall. "Is that what all this has been about?" She threw out her arms in a sweeping gesture that managed to indicate 'all this' was on a level with life, the universe, and everything rather than just the kitschy contents of the small office.

Sardonically, Beetlejuice slowly peeled his arms away from the chair and laboriously lit a cigarette by hand with affected nonchalance. "You think you're that good, babes?" He then blew smoke at her face.

The coughing and hacking that ensued on her part broke through some of the hysteria. Finally, swallowing dryly and hating any vulnerability that asking again showed, she demanded, "Have I enthralled you?"

He sneered and hauled her towards him by the skirt, the only thing he could reach at this angle. She heard a loud rip as she fell awkwardly into his clutches but it didn't register until she felt his clammy hand maneuvering her bare thigh over the armrest. The other hand holding the cig between two fingers grasped the back of her neck to hold her in place. Her eyes wide and her heart thundering in abject terror that he might slide one hand a little too far and discover her hideous underwear, she had about a millisecond to worry that the other hand would set her hair on fire before his lips sealed around hers.

It was not a kiss.

It was a ravishment. He sucked the air out of her lungs and then he started working on her soul. Lightning flashed and her heart stuttered before static shocks crawled from her mouth to her toes, rustling like ancient books flapping their pages over her skin. Her vision had gone black and sparks fizzled behind her eyes by the time he let her lips go, and as if that had been the signal she then passed out.

Swimming towards consciousness, Lydia noticed the sea of stars seemed to dance in a rhythm that she vaguely recognized as someone talking. It was all nonsense: swear, cuss, inventive way of shaming a goat with an octopus, worse swearing, not dead you could have died! Also she might have heard, "My stupid little dumbass sugar baby candy bottom," but it seemed unlikely.

When she came to with a start, he'd managed to stand and pin her against the wall. The look of abject relief on his face was replaced so quickly with fury that she wasn't quite sure she had seen it. Her ribs ached and her lips felt raw but on the whole she felt surprisingly _energetic_.

He grabbed her chin and shook her head lightly. "Ya really don't know nothin', do ya Lyds?" he gritted out. "Two way street here – sign of a complete amateur. Only I can drain you like a goddamned shot while you're still sipping on a Big Gulp."

She knew he had to be, in fact, transcendently angry because he didn't bother to emphasize the innuendo even though their relative positions presented what would normally be overwhelming temptation. She shoved him away and he actually let her, taking a step back to loom over her with his hands planted on the wall hemming her in. Any hope that it wasn't really true died a gasping death, and her heart broke…just a little. Only a tiny crack, not even worth mentioning, she'd never thought he lo-liked her or anything silly like that…had she?

"It wasn't," Lydia began haltingly. "I never intended – I didn't mean to!"

"Oh, well, you didn't MEAN to," Beetlejuice began in a voice that was entirely too calm and descended into venom-dipped daggers made of scorpion tails territory. "That makes it all a-okay!"

"Then we'll just call the whole thing off!" she retorted desperately.

"What? !" he shouted, straightening abruptly. "You-"

He was interrupted by the office door opening and Heidi strolling back in shaking a snow globe. The hallway behind her was empty. "So sorry about that," she said, "I think a little vacation will cool their heads." The snow globe was set on a shelf running around the room just under the ceiling among a clutter of other similar knickknacks. Inside two tiny figures were frozen in a pose of cringing horror, glitter snow piling up around their heads. Behind them was a sign emblazoned with a cheery, 'Aspen skiing' and a diabolically grinning snowman mascot.

Lydia edged around Beetlejuice towards the door. "Um, if you need to do your job-"

"No, no! Family comes first," Heidi protested, nudging them back into their chairs by the elbows. "Besides, what's the Administration going to do? Give me even more community service? I only put up with it as it is because I like playing matchmaker."

Glancing from the snow globe to her grandmother, Lydia made an intuitive leap. "So being a counselor is a p-"

"Punishment? Correct," Heidi said, sitting down herself.

"What did you do in the first place?"

"Pffft." Heidi waved away her concern. "Honestly, nothing much. But apparently they frown on famous people taking a little stroll topside. How was I supposed to know Elvis was still so popular?"

Startled, Beetlejuice's knotted brow twitched and his pinched frown unfurled. "That was _you_?" he snorted.

"I heard about how they tried to pin it on you at first. Made a historic precedent – only time you ever got off the hook by actually being innocent of the crime and not on a technicality, wasn't it?" Heidi propped her chin on her fist and smiled.

His lips quirked back in a smirk that was nearly as nasty as that smile. "Nah. Me and the Chief got our regular poker 'n' beer night. I just make him change out of those ridiculously shiny jumpsuits. He can fit a whole deck of cards up each sleeve." He demonstrated by tweaking his cuff links, unleashing an avalanche of playing cards from at least ten different decks including Tarot. Lydia recognized the Fool as it fluttered by.

"Hm." Heidi attempted to look severe at him but a twinkle in her eyes gave away her amusement. She turned to Lydia. "Darling, it's been lovely chatting but my grandmotherly intuition tells me you didn't come here just to catch up."

"Well, no…" Lydia trailed off sneaking a glance at Beetlejuice from the corner of her eye. He was sitting there with his hands laced together in his lap looking calm and, and chipper, of all things. Lydia was deeply disturbed by this. He had _something_ up his sleeve, and it sure as hell wasn't cards.

"Don't tell me…?" Heidi clapped her hands gleefully. "You want help planning your wedding!"

That was, in fact, the reason they had made an appointment in the first place, and by the time Lydia had rallied herself and found a way to gently (in order to spare her grandmother's feelings and also because no one wants to be a snow globe figurine) explain that they changed their mind, Heidi was on a roll.

"Oh, of course I'll help, you don't even have to ask! There's so much to do! Now, first things first, have you two set a date yet?"

"No," Lydia said at the same time Beetlejuice said, "Yes." As she shot a surprised look at him he put an arm around her shoulders and squished her to his side, taking her hand in his. "We were thinking today," he explained to Heidi conspiratorially as Lydia tried to pry herself free, "But pookie here's feeling embarrassed about how eager she is for the honeymoon, know what I mean?"

Cringing, Lydia hardly had time to say, "I –"

"Oh, no, that won't do at all." Heidi tsked. "There would be no time for anyone to respond to the invitations! I'm sure all of Lydia's cousins and their families, and my brothers and sisters, not to mention the Deetz side of the family, oh, and Pa will certainly want to be there, and then there's-" The list went on. And on and on.

By the time they escaped her grandmother's wedding-mad clutches, Lydia and Beetlejuice had been subjected to a rigorous interrogation about every single person they had ever met in their entire lives and/or existences who might possibly be invited. The most auspicious dates for weddings had been debated with the intensity of a life and death battle (Beetlejuice had set his tent staunchly in the camp of the nearest star alignment, which happened to be only two weeks away, and had won the day by sheer grit and determination and also by pouting about the alignment involving his namesake). They had been grilled about color choices (Lydia had been highly disgruntled that Heidi wouldn't let her get away with choosing "black and a different black" but she was mollified when Beetlejuice's choice of "maroon and powder blue" was vetoed also). They'd been given the third degree over flowers, put on the rack over the style of invitations, gone through the wringer picking a location, and told to come back tomorrow after they had perused a stack of magazines and brochures that towered over both of them.

Laden down with their homework they waded to the door through shin-deep playing cards. As soon as the door shut behind them Lydia heard the slippery sound of hundreds of glossy pages being hurled to the floor, shortly followed by the sight of Beetlejuice knocking her own vision-obstructing stack out of her hands. Once more they were in the beige confines of her dorm room – although Beetlejuice looked an awful lot like he wanted to paint the walls red.


	10. Chapter 10: Temper, Temper

NOTICE OF FURTHER EDITING: You are hereby notified that this chapter has been further edited for grammar, consistency, and also just because.

A/N: This chapter took a long time and it was really hard to write. Walking the line between Beej being a big jerk and Beej being a big unforgivable jerk is understandably difficult. Plus I'm afraid it's another cliff-hanger type ending, but instead of waiting until it's twice as long (which might take nearly another year! the first half of this has been sitting in my computer for ages) I thought y'all might like to take a look at it. Kind readers, please do not be too angry with me. Your reviews were not written in vain! If nobody had liked the last chapter this one would not have been written at all, I've gotta be honest with you.

EDIT/TRIGGER WARNING (some noncon):

I want to assure you that while this chapter pretty much skirts the edge of Noncon, I do not think that his behavior is acceptable and I always try to make sure that he gets his comeuppance in the end. He has some character development to go through before there can be any happy ending to this fic. If you personally feel uncomfortable with that kind of plot development I think you could probably skip this chapter and here's a summary for you: Beetlejuice acts pretty much like a psychopathic poltergeist and makes everyone, including himself, feel bad.

PREVIOUSLY:

Laden down with their homework they waded to the door through shin-deep playing cards. As soon as the door shut behind them Lydia heard the slippery sound of hundreds of glossy pages being hurled to the floor, shortly followed by the sight of Beetlejuice knocking her own vision-obstructing stack out of her hands. Once more they were in the beige confines of her dorm room – although Beetlejuice looked an awful lot like he wanted to paint the walls red.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Ten: A Temper Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

"D'ya know what happens to liars, Lydia?" he asked conversationally as the scattered magazines and pamphlets burst into green flames.

The sheer heat sent Lydia scrambling backwards while scrabbling at her long train. She didn't dare look down to see if her dress was on fire. She had the unsettling feeling he would see that as a sign of weakness and – do what exactly? Pounce on her? The flickering light threw one half of his face then another into sharp relief, bringing out the harsh lines of his skull under the shallow pretense of his ghostly skin. He stalked forward.

"We can talk about this calmly and rationally and – and without setting anything else on fire," she managed to say firmly. Her back hit the wall.

"There's just a few, teeny weeny, itsy bitsy PROBLEMS with that." He held up his pinched together thumb and forefinger. Lydia nearly jumped out of her skin as his voice spoke directly in her ear, with his lips twisted in a smirk a few feet away, "You're not calm." He took that last step forward and clamped his hands on her waist, dropping his forehead down to rest on hers. His dark eye sockets bore down until all she saw was the acid glow of his green irises, swirling gently around black hole pupils. "And I'm not rational!" He picked her up and lazily tossed her across the room.

Shrieking, Lydia bounced off the bare mattress on top of the loft bed. She nearly went over the side before something grabbed her wrist and anchored it to the wooden rail. A slither of leather and the glint of a buckle was the only warning before her other arm was snapped up and belted to the rail. Desperately, Lydia pulled herself up to get the buckles in range of her teeth – if she could only undo them before – but the cool slide of shaped metal snaked under her tangled skirt and around her ankles, yanking her back down.

Beetlejuice slowly rose over the side of the bed wearing puke green surgical scrubs liberally spattered with viscous black fluid. He situated the cap more firmly on his wild hair, making more of it stick out the sides. He snapped on dirty, tattered gloves and raised a twisted eyebrow at her. "Let's play doctor!" he said.

"Let's not, and say we did," Lydia quipped faintly, trying to tug furtively on her bonds.

"Now, now, I'm an expert on mortal wounds. And this one you got here looks very serious indeed." He bent in close and went 'hmmmm.'

"Why are you doing this?" She tugged harder.

He straightened and shook his head. "I'm afraid, Miss Deetz, you have an acute case of prosthesis. There's only one cure. Amputation!" Green flames tinged with orange surged up behind him as he cackled.

Furtive went out the window and she struggled with all her skinny Goth might. There was obviously no use reasoning with him. She had no idea how to use any necromantic powers against him or even what most of them might be. However, she only had to say his name, and he would be put Back. It was risky, but it was a chance. The ceiling was already hazy with smoke and it was becoming difficult to breathe.

"Nurse!" he roared, "My scalpel!" He held out his hand imperiously.

Lydia automatically looked to the left and there Beetlejuice was, in a striped nurse costume and pigtails. He handed over a wickedly gleaming scalpel with a teehee.

Lydia's eyes darted to the right and there he was in the scrubs. He took one look at the scalpel and tossed it over his shoulder, where it stuck quivering in the opposite wall. "Machete!"

"Machete!" he answered, slapping the handle in his open palm.

Inspecting the edge on his thumb, he grunted and tossed that over his shoulder too, knocking the scalpel out of the wall. "Chainsaw!" he shouted while pulling on complicated brass goggles.

"Chainsaw!" he chirped to himself and pulled out a rusty three foot long monster with the 'Acme' logo just barely visible under suspicious stains.

He was fiddling with the ignition, cursing to himself and trying to get it started. She wasn't going to get a better chance. "Beetlejui-!" A belt cinched itself over her mouth.

He tsked and shook a finger at her. "Don't you WANT to get better, Miss Deetz?"

"Mmph!" She tried pleading with her eyes.

He finally got the chainsaw going.

She tried sticking her chest out and wiggled one leg out of the rip in her skirt. He wouldn't really cut her in half, right?

He revved the chainsaw, the unholy ruckus deafening over the crackling of the flames below.

It would be stupid of him to kill her, right? Marrying a corpse wouldn't net him his green card. He wouldn't. Although he had been going to marry her when he thought she was already a ghost and maybe he thought they'd just get back together or something and oh god -

The whirring blade lifted to the ceiling.

He would.

She flinched as he brought the chainsaw crashing down in a blur of frenzied motion, again and again. Lydia blinked as the machine died with a growl. She didn't feel any pain – there was, however, a draft.

Pulling down the surgical mask he blew the last scrap of her clothes off her chest, then leaned the chainsaw on one shoulder and pushed up his goggles to admire the view. "Yep, it just had to come off."

For a breathless moment Lydia lay naked and stunned under his perusal, her eyes stinging with acrid smoke and her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Then the sprinkler system went off.

The wail of the fire alarm and the rush of people panicking drowned out her startled shriek, muffled as it was by the belt between her teeth. The spray of icy water, however, had predictable results on certain portions of her anatomy that Beetlejuice found very interesting and, at this particular moment in time, she found completely humiliating.

At first he only noticed the way her sobbing shook her chest, however as he leaned in and blocked the sprinkler, the tears trickling down her cheeks were no longer hidden by the spray. His eyes widened as he reared back, throwing down the chainsaw and ripping the goggles off. For a moment he struggled with himself, his face twitching with the force of his inner debate.

He shouldn't care if she was crying. He totally didn't care! The little bitch had been manipulating him from the start, and this was the least of what he could do to her…what he wanted to do. The more he hesitated, the angrier he got. His thoughts twisted down dark paths, involving tangled limbs and incoherent begging.

He had a bad habit of maiming people, when they actually managed to hurt whatever vestige of humanity still cowered meekly in his psyche. He had also done worse things, but that at least made sense. His reluctance now to lash out and utterly crush the cause of his own pain as painfully as possible was confusing. And it wasn't because the cause in this case was a hot chick, because that had never mattered before when the cut ran this deep (as one particularly memorable ex-lover had found out, much to her very momentary surprise).

It was because Lydia was…Lydia. Shit, what had she done to him? Sure, she'd lied. Who didn't lie to him? And she'd tried to make him sign a stupid contract. And she'd argued with him and called him names. Nothing new there. And she was a baby necromancer who'd been feeding off his energy through an accidental bond. He'd already proven she couldn't control him – hell, her Grams couldn't bind him for more than five minutes using his true name! And she didn't actually want to marry him – well, add her to the list of every single fucking person he had ever met that didn't want anything to do with him! It was a damned long list. He couldn't even pinpoint the exact thing he was so furious about.

The fire alarm was starting to get seriously annoying. So he rearranged reality. Now, the alarm and the sprinklers had never gone off, and the fire was reduced to so much smoldering ash on the carpet. He left the water which had fallen on Lydia, though. Because he could.

With the next blink of his eye where the bunk bed had been there was now an old-fashioned therapist's couch where a shivering and tearful Lydia was strapped into a straight jacket with sleeves that merged into the plush red upholstery. She also had on a fifties circle skirt rucked up over sheer petticoats, garters, and stockings. Black patent Mary Janes were very securely fastened to her feet. Because this was his show, dammit, and he could do what he liked, not because any of it might make her feel better.

Beetlejuice settled back into a cushy armchair and ran a hand over his grease-tamed hair. Peering at her through a monocle he said, "Now, Miz Lydia, it iz quite natural to weep, ve haf had an enormoz breakthrough today. But for me to help you, you must anzer my questions vith nozing but the truth!"

She shouted something which was rendered incoherent by the belt in her mouth and strained against the fabric that held her captive. She aimed a kick in his direction but it fell sadly short. He enjoyed the view while it lasted, though. She couldn't decide if it would have been better or worse if he hadn't shredded her granny panties and he was leering at her in hideous support underwear, rather than this getup which had surely belonged to a very different sort of grandma back in the day. The kind that didn't wear underwear.

"Temper, temper!" He wagged a finger and pulled a notebook out of the vest of his three piece tweed suit. His sharp teeth glittered and he said, "Ve mustn't let our inner demons control us." He flipped the notebook open to a page filled with scribbles and little stick figures making faces. "Anzer yes or no! I vill know if you lie, and you vill be _punished_." An elaborate wooden cabinet appeared covered with switches and clockwork and gold lettering that spelled out _Truth-o-meter_. There was a large gauge with a needle balanced between 'falsity' and 'veracity' with two electrodes on top on either side, red and green. "Have you ever had a man, shall ve say, intimately?"

Lydia's eyes widened and her brow furrowed. This particular question was hardly what she'd expected and it made her angry enough to want to say, 'Yes, like a hundred, it's my body and I can do what I want with it.' However, she could only nod contemptuously.

Beetlejuice himself was a little surprised at what had come out of his mouth, not having really intended on questioning her virginity, but he found that he was intently interested in her answer. When she nodded glaring daggers at him, he wanted to break somebody's face and then the Truth-o-meter buzzed harshly and the red light flashed. A laugh burst out of him. "My naughty little spooky muffin! Do ya _want_ to be bent over my knee?" An unhappy thought intruded. "Or was it just a _boy_ that laid his mitts on you?"

Frowning thunderously Lydia nodded again, and again the Truth-o-meter ratted her out.

"That's twice, babycakes. You a masochist or somethin'?" With a thought he was sitting on the end of the couch. The original plan to punish her had been a lot more complicated, and involved a water wheel, some goat cheese, a hundred scorpions, and a clerical collar, but then she tried to kick him again. An impulse seized him as he caught her by the ankles. It was time to find out what she was really made of.

One leg was tucked under his arm and he brought the other to his lips, then proceeded to lick up her shoe to her ankle, which he bit hard. Not enough to break the skin, but definitely enough to make an impression. "One down, one to go," he said, teeth scraping over the buckle of the ankle strap. He would vehemently deny going easy on her if anyone ever asked.

Then his striped tongue slobbered over her leg all the way up to her knee, while she writhed in a desperate attempt to dislodge him, or at least wipe that stupid smirk off his face with the bony side of her shin. Latching on to the tender curve at the back of her knee, he made a truly impressive hickey. He let go with an obscene smacking noise and the snap of the stocking, and just barely avoided a knee cap to the nose.

"Ya wanna go ahead and lie to me again? 'Cause I gotta tell you I consider 'legs' to include what's between 'em and I'm looking forward to punishing you some more."

It hadn't seemed possible that Lydia could look more outraged, but somehow she managed. The barely restrained violence in how she breathed, taxing the ability of the straightjacket, the crackle of dark energy in her brown eyes, her absolute helplessness to actually do anything to him in retaliation – it all made him want to rile her up some more.

"It's hardly my fault what you make me lick, babes." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

She was really regretting having relented on the 'Nothing Below the Waist' rule.

"You wanna know what it feels like, don't ya?"

Lydia froze. The worst part was, she did. She was too honest with herself to deny that she was curious about it. He just had to ask like that, when she could only nod yes or no, and couldn't tack on, 'but not with you, not like this' or 'I'm a teenager, what do you expect.' She couldn't help but feel that no matter what happened, she was going to be screwed in the very near future. Damned if she tried to deny her blasted virginal curiosity and damned if she admitted it. He would probably take a 'yes' like a formal invitation to her lady bits, complete with gilt edges and an R.S.V.P.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her mind racing away at a million miles a minute.

His hands, splayed over her thighs, inched up millimeter by millimeter as one second ticked by and then another. The calloused tips of his fingers found the garter straps and slipped under them.

Desperately wishing that _she_ could interrogate _him,_ and casting about for any solution, she came across a familiar presence inside her head. It felt like static and dust and she remembered it from her grandmother's office as it invaded her entire body. So she grabbed onto Beetlejuice's power with all her might. And, like a playful but obedient dog, it did what she asked.

And that is how she found herself wearing the tweed suit, holding on to Beetlejuice's stocking-clad legs, and gritting her teeth against his efforts to wrest back his mojo. It liked her better. She could tell by the way it wagged its mental impression of a tail at her.


	11. Chapter 11: A Four Letter Word

NOTICE OF FURTHER EDITING: You are hereby notified that this chapter has been further edited for grammar, consistency, and also just because.

A/N: …what is this? An update within a month? Is the world ending? In a way, yes - this is probably the last chapter that's posted on ff-net. In my head this isn't even close to the end, but even this chapter got cut short because of the M rating rules (which are kind of vague as to how strongly you can hint without being too explicit) and having this story deleted would be generally upsetting, I think, to all the people who left me super nice reviews and encouraged me to keep going. If there is a serious outcry at the injustice of ending the story here, well, I mean, I don't think there will be…? Oftentimes the pleas of reviewers do work on me eventually.

As an aside, I have recently been informed that I will never be as good as some other writers in the Beetlejuice fandom (whom I will not name because let's be honest, we've all got our favorite vision of the Ghost with the Most and life would be boring if we all agreed). But I think that was supposed to hurt my feelings. Instead, I have embraced my hack-itude. Be warned, bad writing ahoy! Strange metaphors! Punctuation untouched by Beta hands! The plot does the hula! And…unbelievable confessions? Alea iacta est!

PREVIOUSLY:

Desperately wishing that ___she_ could interrogate ___him,_ and casting about for any solution, she came across a familiar presence inside her head. It felt like static and dust and she remembered it from her grandmother's office as it invaded her entire body. So she grabbed onto Beetlejuice's power with all her might. And, like a playful but obedient dog, it did what she asked.

And that is how she found herself wearing the tweed suit, holding on to Beetlejuice's stocking-clad legs, and gritting her teeth against his efforts to wrest back his mojo. It liked her better. She could tell by the way it wagged its mental impression of a tail at her.

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Eleven: In Which a Four Letter L-Word Comes Into Play

Picture a dog. It is one of those dogs that doesn't realize how big it actually is, which happens to be closer to the size of a living room than a small horse. Lydia couldn't help but imagine Beetlejuice's power as a panting, slobbering, hairy mutt. And the unseen tableau here was disconcertingly like those tear-jerking scenes in the movies where the pet has to choose his real owner with someone on each side of the room whistling and saying, "Come on, over here, boy!" In fact, concentrating on that imagery was helping Lydia get a handle on this new form of mental warfare, because her sense of his power tended to fade if she concentrated too hard or too little, and that was apparently just right.

The initial and abrupt turnabout when Lydia latched onto his energy had been startling for them both. Lydia, confronted by Beetlejuice wearing drag again (she hadn't realized that her former outfit had included neon bright lipstick, winged eyeliner, and bouffant curls), did not recover as quickly. He was able to outmaneuver her hold on his legs, which the stockings made slippery. Before she could roll off the couch, he had those same legs wrapped around her waist, trapping her in place.

Their battle of wills over the ownership of his power continued. Beetlejuice was not above cheating, using the metaphysical equivalent of dangling a juicy bone behind his back. His power liked creating chaos – it naturally flowed to places with the most potential for disorder. And Beetlejuice was promising to wreck all kinds of mischief, mostly on Lydia, immediately upon the return of his mojo.

Well, she knew how to fight dirty too. Abandoning her attempts to escape, she reached down between them and rooted through fluffy petticoats. When she hit pay dirt, he went still with a muffled grunt. She loosened the leather strap over his mouth and shouted over the profanities that spewed forth, "If you don't stop fighting me right now, I will do unspeakable things to you with this!" She shook the strap.

He eyed her warily, then the corner of his mouth quirked up. "…You promise?"

"Oh, I _promise._" If she hadn't had his attention before, she definitely had it now (especially with the Truth-o-meter declaring her utterly serious intent, not a hint of red now). She lifted the strap off so that it was around her two fingers, and then tightened it with her teeth until her skin around the strap lost what little color she normally had. For emphasis, she jerked her head one more time and squeezed with her other hand down below. Under her palm, something…grew. Her breath caught a little at the realization that he had not previously been erect. Apparently he liked her being on top a lot more than his crazy psychoanalyst routine.

Meanwhile, she had sneakily managed to get a firm hold on his power, too, with the expedient of her mental self sitting down and offering it tummy rubs, which were enthusiastically accepted (trying to understand what that actually meant, outside of the terms of her doggy metaphor, was almost enough to shatter her sanity). She thought of a collar and leash. When they appeared in her mindscape she could see that they were actually just one word, spoken over and over. They wouldn't go over the dog's head, though, and it occurred to her that it was because she would have to actually say it out loud. Desperately, she tried to recall the intonation her grandmother had used. Would it be good or bad if she accidentally put him Back if she tried to do this? Either sending him back or binding him, failure was not an option.

To keep him from guessing what she was planning, she demanded, "Why do you want to marry me?" The fact that she really wanted to know was beside the point. However, she might actually follow through with her threat of…strangulation, no matter how squeamish the thought made her, if he said…

"Pretty sure we discussed the terms when I proposed, O dominatrix of my cold dead heart." The Truth-o-meter flashed green. "I want Out." Green again.

Expected answer or not, Lydia saw red. Wincing after each wrong try, she snapped, "Beetlegiuce, Beetlegeuse, Betelguese!"

The power in her voice rang out, leaving her throat scraped raw. The collar that wasn't really a collar slipped onto the dog that wasn't really a dog and shrunk down into a smooth, unbroken metal ring. They crashed onto the ashy floor as the couch disappeared along with all the other things he had conjured, including the outfit he was wearing. The ghost himself, however, remained.

She had her hand on the crotch of a naked Beetlejuice. She was wearing his striped suit. Her hand was…! Her dorm was a blackened wasteland. Her hand was touching his bare skin, without any petticoat in the way, right on his…! Needless to say, Lydia was freaking out.

"What the hell? !" Beetlejuice exclaimed, propping himself up on his elbows. "What the fuck did you just do? !" His eyes followed her line of sight down to where her shell-shocked gaze was glued onto her hand on his crotch.

Lydia couldn't make herself look away – it was like watching a train wreck. You don't want to, and you know it's wrong, but there's just something endlessly fascinating about how horrible it is. There was dirt. And mold in weird places. As if preening under all the attention, little Beetlejuice twitched against her palm and did his very best salute, standing at attention.

"Goddam, babes, are ya just gonna stare at my dick all day, or are ya gonna _do_ something with it?" he finally managed to rasp out huskily.

She hastily snatched her hand back, blurting out, "I'm sorry!" She got up like a shot, hands up as if caught in the act by police, and turned away. Yanking off his suit jacket, she thrust it behind her in his general direction, where a ridiculously orchestral groan and a muted thump were her only signals of him throwing himself flat on the ground in exasperation.

What, exactly, had she done? The dog, which she now just thought of as 'Juice,' was whining unhappily in her mental landscape while it scratched at the collar with a hind leg and chewed on the chain leash which was connected to a ring on her finger.

Experimentally, she said, "Betel-" Even she felt the electric shock that vibrated through their connection, mild as it was. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "Beetlejuice."

"Would you cut that shit out?" he snarled, picking himself up. For some reason that eluded him, he was having a difficult time floating and he actually had to resort to the chore of real, physical movement.

The rustle of cloth assured her that he was putting on his jacket. Turning around, she said, "I want to reopen our previous negotiations regarding the terms of your propos…I can't talk to you like this!" She whirled back around with a resolution not to look in his direction again until she had some kind of guarantee that he was not pointing in her direction.

He had put on his striped jacket – in the normal fashion, so that it left the whole front length of his body on display. The clothing only served to highlight a certain member of his anatomy. There was no help for it. She would just have to give him the pants, too.

He watched bemusedly as she stripped. Nearly ripping out the laces in her haste to untie his boots, she eventually got them off and then shimmied out of the pants, which she tossed over her shoulder at him.

She should have guessed that he didn't wear boxers. The magenta shirt barely covered her essentials, even as oversized as his clothing was on her.

"…Do ya really think taking off my pants is going to lead to us fucking talking?"

"Just Put The Pants On!" Lydia felt like she'd licked a battery. That was not a suggestion, and they both knew it.

Beetlejuice tried to play it off like he had a choice in the matter even as he was hopping into the pants as quickly as inhumanly possible, which strangely was only a little faster than humanly possible at the moment. He muttered, "Fine, alright. Since you asked so nicely."

Hearing the zipper a second time amidst vociferous swearing condemning the infernal device back to hell, Lydia thought it was probably safe to turn around, but she still hesitated.

"There," he huffed as he buckled the belt and his hands obeyed him once more. "I'm wearin' 'em. What d'ya want now yer pickiness, Princess Chastity of Prudeston?"

She faced him, tilting her chin up with proud determination. They couldn't go on like this, it just wasn't healthy. His little demonstration proved that. Their relationship – no, their interactions had been a farce from the beginning, and it was time to end it. "I think we should see other people," she declared.

"What," he said flatly, scowling. His hands clenched slowly into fists.

"I remember what you said to me. The terms of your proposal?" She shook back the overlong cuffs of his shirt and crossed her arms. "You just want Out. Well here you are! Beetlejuice!"

He made an abortive motion to stop her. "No - Stop; ARGH."

"Beetlejuice, _Beetlejuice_, BEETLEJUICE!" Each time it came out louder until she was hunched over from shouting at him and her cheeks were flushed bright red.

By the time she finished, he was writhing in pain with his hands clamped over his ears, and when she let up, breathing hard, he slumped over limp on the floor. But he was still there.

"You're good and stuck here right now, aren't you? I hope you're happy! Welcome to the world of the living." She gestured expansively at the beige and black wreck of a dorm room. "What are you going to do now? Get a job like the rest of the schmucks on the planet, go down to the local dive when your shift is done, have a brew and hit on the bar-flies? You gonna watch sports and have a shit fit when your team loses? Live in the 'burbs and cut the grass every weekend? What's so great about being up here, huh?"

He wasn't moving. Not a twitch. For a dead guy, he looked…really dead.

Cautiously, she stepped closer. If anybody deserved what she'd just done, whatever it was, it was him - but she still felt guilty. She wasn't the kind of girl to lead somebody on and then leave them high and dry. "Look, all I really meant is that you have options now. This whole marriage of 'inconvenience' thing isn't the only way. We can make a new deal. You didn't really want to be stuck with me forever, right?"

No response.

Her brow furrowed. "Beej, come on. We can come up with something that'll make both of us happy, which I think is pretty generous, considering. Hell, we can break this weird bond thing we have and I'll even help you find a woman who wants to marry you if you're still dead set on it. No pun intended."

He slowly picked himself up, face turned away. "Oh, ya will, huh?" It wasn't in his nature to be introspective, but her little power trip had made taking a tour through the hell he called his mind necessary. Lying there on the floor with his ears ringing, he'd come across some rather…interesting things (like a small but growing temple district with shrines dedicated to various parts of Lydia's body that he wanted to worship – but he didn't have time right now to take a closer look at that, intriguing as it was).

A tinge of apprehension gripped her, but she rallied and said, "Yes."

His eyes slid over to her. Her heart stopped cold at the look on his face. This was what fear felt like. It mocked any weak imitation that had bothered her before. Icy sweat broke out on her back and her throat went completely dry. No human expression could describe that decaying face.

"Good. Great. Wonderful. Fan-fuckin-tastic. Your first step should be to make up your own GODDAMN mind!" His hands reached out for her, his yellow nails filthy claws and the moldy growths sprouting fur.

What change had come over him; why couldn't she see this before? The girl who prided herself on seeing the strange and unusual had only scratched the surface of the horror hiding beneath his playful malice. She froze like a deer in headlights. Her breath stuttered.

He was a green-eyed monster with a Halloween grin, and he gathered her in with all the care of a raven swallowing an eyeball whole. "'Cause I found a woman who wants me, but she thinks she can run away," he explained impatiently.

"I don't!" Lydia managed to squeak.

"That so? Then it was some _other_ girlie this afternoon, moanin' beneath me." His rough hands glided down her arms and across her waist over the satin shirt, the barest hind of a caress, and she trembled. "But she looked a fuck of a lot like you! Same face, same hair." He reached the placket and tore the shirt open, making buttons ping all over.

She gasped. He lifted his glowing gaze to stare into her eyes. Forcing her numb limbs into motion, she tried to back away, to clutch the fabric closed.

"Yep. Same hooters." A wickedly sharp finger nail traced the hickeys he'd left behind. "And look! Same pattern." His pleased smile outdid a shark's.

His gentle touches were leaving behind trails of fire that contrasted hotly with his cold skin. She was wavering in her resolution to break up with him. The thought that he was really good at this, however, bolstered her resolve - she wasn't going to be toyed with. "There are a lot of fish in the sea," she said, shoving against his firm chest heedless that it was bare. Her palms encountered muscles. Lots of them. Oh. She may have just groped his pecs. Whoops? "It won't take you very long to get over me, I'm sure!" she insisted.

He flexed his arms and she was falling, but he only let her drop the last inch or so by herself. He was sliding in between her splayed thighs and looming over her. "Nope, it won't," he said, running his hands over her hips.

"You asshole-!"

He interrupted. "I don't wanna look at other options. I'm not interested in renegotiating!" She'd asked if he really wanted to be stuck with her forever, and the truth was that he really did. He could see a lot of benefits to that situation.

His fingers tangled in the curls below her navel and his thumb sought downwards, brushing over something on the way that made her back arch and stars appear. He brought it back to his mouth slick with moisture. The sight of his striped tongue wrapped around his thumb licking it clean made her stomach clench.

"I've got the fish I want," he said, leaning in. "Right. Here."

That sounded like…but it couldn't be! Her nerveless fingers seized his lapels. "Swear that I'm the only one. Tell me that there will never be anyone else."

He hesitated, staring at her vulnerable face, at her mouth softly open and her fawn brown eyes. "I always said if I was gonna get hitched, I was only gonna do it once," he muttered. Her taste lingered like dark, sweet licorice. He smacked his lips, hungry for more.

Lydia tangled her legs with his and pulled him down nose to nose. "Swear or we're done!"

His twisted eyebrows flew up. "…I think I love you," he finally said.

"That works too," she breathed, and finally kissed him.

[Scene redacted due to adult content.]


	12. Ch12: Perils of Over- and Under-thinking

A/N: I fixed some things that were bothering me about the previous two chapters, so it might be worth it to re-read them. This chapter is basically an exercise in tap dancing around the surprising number of plot points that want to come up in adult-touching type situations, but I gave it my best shot. Not sure if it worked too well. Looking into other methods of archiving, but so far I haven't made the move.

I want to thank everyone who encouraged me with reviews and extremely kind words. I can only hope that you will accept repayment in the form of more fanfic. If this doesn't live up to expectations, the only appropriate thing I can do is perform penance by watching 'Beetlejuice' a hundred and sixty seven times.

PREVIOUSLY:

"I've got the fish I want," he said, leaning in. "Right. Here."

That sounded like…but it couldn't be! Her nerveless fingers seized his lapels. "Swear that I'm the only one. Tell me that there will never be anyone else."

He hesitated, staring at her vulnerable face, at her mouth softly open and her fawn brown eyes. "I always said if I was gonna get hitched, I was only gonna do it once," he muttered. Her taste lingered like dark, sweet licorice. He smacked his lips, hungry for more.

Lydia tangled her legs with his and pulled him down nose to nose. "Swear or we're done!"

His twisted eyebrows flew up. "…I think I love you," he finally said.

"That works too," she breathed, and finally kissed him.

[Scene redacted due to adult content.]

AND NOW, ON WITH THE STORY!

Chapter Twelve: The Perils of Over- and Under-thinking

Lydia felt like a ridiculous teenage cliché as she just sat there afterwards and stared at him - namely the 'my first time was not what I was expecting at all' regret, which comes in many flavors.

Right in the middle of her second…anyway, he'd bent all his considerable will to freeing Juice from her leash. It had been like holding onto Tam Lin. In her mindscape the dog grew and mutated and shrunk and transformed, from snake to mouse to hydra and countless creatures she couldn't even name – none of which could slip the similarly protean collar. Connected by the chain, she had been yanked this way and that and upside down, but she'd already decided to just lay back, hang on, and enjoy the ride. It was a roller coaster. It was straddling a tiger bareback while holding it by the tail. You were safe – as long as you never let go.

At the end, though, he'd choked himself out when at last the collar couldn't keep up with the transformation from ant to behemoth leviathan. Or had she done that to him?

Lying there unconscious he didn't look tamed in any way, shape, or form. Nudity stripped him of even the flimsy pretense of civility that his clothes had afforded him. His white skin reflected the moonlight spilling through the window like a smudged mirror, shadows robbing his mildew's color. He could have been a cave creature that had just clawed its way out of long confinement in murky darkness, and he had the muscles to prove it. He had a paunch, but it was mostly because he was built like a barrel. And…the way he'd touched her…the things his strong hands could do….

Blushing, she shook her head violently. If she could believe that he actually meant what he'd said, that would be one thing. She realized now, much too late, that if she could force him to do anything and everything she wanted, how much her subconscious desires could influence his physical actions. After all, he'd injured himself trying to get away from her mentally.

What the hell was this tiger going to do to her when she lost her grip on his tail? His little temper tantrum about lying had been bad enough. She was so screwed! She covered her face with her hands and flopped onto her back, hissing as the half-melted, mostly-charred remnants of carpet dug into tender places.

The thump to the floor dislodged a precarious pile of slag that might have once been a stack of bridal magazines, revealing a flash of yellow visible out of the corner of her eye, through her fingers.

With no solution to her problem forthcoming, she had nothing better to do than go unearth what turned out to be a miraculously unburned book with a title she could just make out in the dark: "Basic Necromancy for Dummies."

"Grandma, you're the best!" she breathed, and settled down to study up by the door, which she cracked open to let in the light of the hallway.

The Introduction read as follows: _Can you see dead people? Do spirits talk to you, give you news from the other side, tell you where you left your socks, foretell the future, etc.? Ever accidentally go around animating dead tissue? Have you ever breached the gates of death and/or drawn a soul away from the underworld? If so, congratulations! You may be a natural necromancer. Here are five tests to confirm your potential that can be performed in the comfort of your own home with some simple ingredients…._

Unfortunately for Lydia, "Advanced Necromancy for Dummies" would have been much more applicable to her situation. The basic book only dealt with poltergeists level one through three (harmless to alarming), and the Administration had run out of numbers trying to categorize a certain ghost with the most.

-SCENE BREAK-

Beetlejuice woke up with the worst hangover he'd ever had. It felt like he'd tried to cleave open his head with a battle axe so he could pour the liquor straight into his brain again. That had been a shit-stupid idea the first time, why would he…?

The soft sound of – yes – someone sorting through burnt out wreckage reached his ears. He'd heard it often enough before. He peeled open one eye and was treated to the delightful sight of Lydia puttering around wearing only his striped jacket in the scanty light of dawn.

Oh, yeah. The memories started drifting back in through the splitting headache and a toothy grin cracked open his face. Oh _fuck yeah._ He did not regret his little white lie at all; one four letter l-word is a lot like another, right? It had saved him from making a freaking goddamned permanent oath, and – this was his favorite part – was apparently the mystical key to Lydia's ironclad chastity belt. Who knew?

Hell, maybe he DID lo…like her, since he was fairly certain she had ruined him for anybody else. Orders of any kind tended to stroke him the wrong way, but when Lydia told him, "More," with that damned binding voice of hers…let's just say it made him _feel things_. Naughty things. After a while he hadn't even minded not having control of his own powers, although when he got them back he was definitely going to turn on the juice and return the favor (not that she'd had any complaints about his performance this go round, he was sure). It probably also helped that she hadn't told him to do anything he didn't want to do already. Except putting on his pants, but since she took them off him herself _with her teeth_ not five minutes later he was willing to let that one pass.

He'd been dead so long he barely even remembered being alive, but an exchange of spiritual essences just wasn't the same as swapping spit, among other things. The empty dances of the dead were a vainglorious shadow play that he had often and repeatedly reveled in whenever he got the chance, but it was like bitter ashes in comparison to the taste of the real thing she'd given him. He licked his lips.

Or maybe that was real ash, from him setting everything on fire yesterday. Normally an ashy coating wouldn't bother him, but today he was more embodied than he'd been in a long time, short of possessing a breather. His old flesh suit was occupying the same space he was instead of shunted just to the left of reality where he normally kept it (it had _been_ him, so it could be used to control him like a meat puppet voodoo doll, therefore he'd stolen it). A certain little necromancer was probably responsible, since he also had a sluggish pulse and a slight interest in breathing for its own sake. Thankfully he still looked like his normal gorgeous self and not a leathery mummy. Whatever. If that's what Lydia was into, it was fine with him.

Now if only his head would stop hurting, he was definitely up for round two: the morning after. Souls could certainly be injured and feel pain, but it was a lot more annoying in a semi-physical body that he couldn't just snap his fingers and fix.

He certainly wouldn't repeat the mistake he'd made had last night. He'd thought it would be easy to retake control of their bond while she was 'otherwise occupied.' Lydia picked things up quick, though, which was a hell of a lot of fun in bed but a nuisance in this case. Whatever hold she had on him had been too strong to break her control without breaking the bond, which tied Lydia to Beetlejuice as tightly as it did him to her, among other delightful things…

"Damn it!" Lydia's exclamation broke into his thoughts.

"Whatsit now?" He levered himself up.

She held up a black dress, which momentarily blocked his excellent view of her long legs before it fell apart along the scorch marks. "Did you have to ruin all my clothes?" As he smirked and opened his mouth to reply, she dropped the ragged straps with a sigh and said, "No, don't answer that. The one time it would be nice if you could pull one of your quick changes, and you're..." She made an incomprehensible gesture.

"I'm what?" he ground out. His biceps flexed and his eyebrow twitched as she continued to stare at him. His head was even aching too much to joke about her liking what she saw (he knew she did, most eligible bachelor since Valentino crossed over, here).

Lydia had to steel herself against flinching. "…Tired?" she deadpanned. "I'd let you do it, even. You formally have my permission to change what I'm wearing." She smiled wryly and struck a pose, one hand belatedly keeping the oversized suit jacket from gaping at the bottom.

Even through his annoyance and headache Beetlejuice had a brief vision of exactly the black dress he wanted her to wear if she insisted on being clothed. He held up his thumbs and forefingers to frame her and pictured it. He even had _permission_, how was it fair that – it worked. He blinked and the vision didn't change. He got up on his knees to better appreciate it, close enough to reach out and touch, although he refrained for now to savor the moment. There were loopholes, and then there were glaringly obvious, exploitable, practically gift-wrapped _loopholes_.

Lydia was incredulously picking at the extremely daring neckline. "How did…? How is this even staying on? Is this glue? !" Her eyes lifted to glare at him heatedly. "And more importantly, do I look like Elvira, freaking Mistress of the Dark to you?"

He tilted his head and squinted. "Yeah, pretty much." Her aura pulsed dangerously against his through the bond, sending sensation crawling down his spine. Combined with the way she was looking at him it was just too much. "But you're way hotter," he added absently, investing his attention in memorizing the shapely outlines of her bared leg with his hands. He was already rock hard and he _wanted_ her, but it was the throbbing in his other head that was really putting a damper on things. As his strokes got higher her breath caught, and he wheedled, "Dark mistress, why don't you tell me I can heal?"

Slightly slack jawed, she was still sharp enough to ask, "Why?"

"Because my head's hurtin' trying to comprehend the way your breasts defy gravity," he said, but it was a bad job and he knew it. Damn. He could see her putting the pieces together, just like he had.

She could have smacked herself on the forehead. Even over your intentions, words had certain power: oaths, promises, permissions, spells and names. There were warnings to watch what you said nearly every other page in "Basic Necromancy." But she reached out and smoothed her thumb over the furrows between his eyebrows caused by tension and pain. That was her fault. There was only one thing she could think of to do about it, and she didn't know when or how, but she was going to regret it. "Heal away," she said. How he could possibly use that particular power against her, she had no clue, but then again she wasn't a centuries-old, deceitful, manipulative poltergeist, either.

She sighed, the rise and fall of twin perfection a benediction from his own personal sex goddess. A thought later all the negative effects of his ill-conceived coup were mended, he was feeling better than ever, and – her stranglehold on the bond was loosened by just that much.

He'd finally reached the place that he wanted to stroke most when her hands caught at his and she leaned down to look him directly in the eyes. She was looking pinched and even more sleep-deprived than she usually did, with purple liberally smudged under her eyes. She said, very clearly, "You don't have to do this."

He rocked back on his heels and blinked, nonplussed. "…This?"

"Kneeling at my feet and calling me mistress and…stuff." She bit her lip, making his eyes zero in. So he had the perfect opportunity to read her lips as she said, "I'm sorry for…_using_ you last night. I don't want you to do anything sexual that you don't want to."

His fingers on her thigh tightened. Was he really hearing this? ! He nearly cackled with glee. How the hell did he stumble over a hot as fuck, totally untrained necromancer with a serious yen for his yang? Yesterday she'd wrapped him up tighter than a black widow, then proceeded to ride him like her personal bronco. Today she was apparently under the impression that_ it was all her idea_. Ha!

He would certainly disabuse her of the notion that she could make him do anything he didn't want to, unless he let her make him. Who did she think he was? But first he could use this to weasel more concessions from her; every little bit helped. He didn't know how it would stand up to her actually ordering him to do something, but there was a chance even that wouldn't work. He dragged back up some of the resentment he still felt about her lying to him about being a ghost, and said, "But if you can make me _want_ to do something…"

She looked stricken. Seriously, he thought she might fall down. He helpfully pulled one of her legs over his shoulder to make it easier to steady her with his hands on her ass.

If she had waited and thought this through when she hadn't been up all night worrying and studying that book (which at that very moment was not very carefully hidden under more crispy-fried bridal magazines), she might have worked out a way to express the freedom she wanted to give him that couldn't be taken the wrong way. "You can feel whatever you want about me," she said, to forestall whatever she was unintentionally compelling him to do at the moment.

"Gee, thanks! That's sweet of you," he practically chirped. "Why don't you let me show you," he continued in his full throated, gravelly timbre while pulling her in towards his face, finally mumbling, "how sweet you are?" against her skin.

On the other hand, then she would have missed out on his extremely creative interpretations of feeling whatever he wanted about her and changing what she was wearing.


End file.
